Electronics dominated export receipts in March

Electronic products remained the country’s top export in March, as they accounted for 41 percent of the country’s total export receipts, the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Inc. (Seipi) said.

In a report, Seipi president Dan Lachica said that exports of electronic products rose by 10.12 percent to $2.16 billion in March, from the $1.97 billion recorded in the same month last year.

“The three main drivers with triple-digit growth rates were electronic data processing at 179 percent, consumer electronics at 103 percent, and automotive electronics at 304 percent. Exports of other electronics grew by 21.79 percent from $106.18 million last year to $129.32 million (in March),” Lachica explained.

Electronic exports receipts in March meanwhile grew by 15.18 percent when compared with the previous month’s export revenue of $1.88 billion.

As of end-March, cumulative exports of electronic products reached $5.83 billion—10 percent higher than the $5.28 billion seen in the same period last year.

“For two consecutive months, six of nine electronic products posted positive growth, namely office equipment at 49 percent, consumer electronics at 61 percent, communication/radar at 9 percent, medical/industrial instrumentation at 26 percent, EDP (electronic data processing) at 184 percent and automotive electronics at 157 percent. The latter came back strong after a negative (71 percent) growth,” Lachica said.

Cumulative exports of other electronics in the first quarter of the year similarly grew by almost 43 percent to $413.46 million, from $289.28 million a year ago.

The top five export destinations, which comprised 66.3 percent of total revenues, were Hong Kong, China, Japan, Singapore, and the United States.

Completing the country’s top 10 markets were Germany, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Korea and Thailand.

For 2014, Seipi has maintained its modest 5-percent growth projection for electronics exports. The expected recovery in the industry’s export revenues may be attributed to the growth in demand, particularly for automotive and consumer electronics, as the global economy improves.

Last year, export revenues of locally manufactured electronics components were estimated to range from $20 billion to $21 billion—lower than the previous year’s sales given the weakness in global demand, specifically for semiconductors.