Pegatron chairman TH Tung has expressed optimism about the development of Taiwan's electric vehicle (EV) industry supply chain, which is expected to gain a foothold in the worldwide market.

Tung pointed out that the automotive industry created around US$4 trillion in output in 2018 and 2019, far higher than the notebook and desktop industry's US$200 billion, the smartphone industry's around US$500 billion and the semiconductor industry's around US$430 billion.

In the past, the automotive industry was composed of 70% car manufacturing and 30% IT technologies, but IT technologies will grow in importance and share, as governments in Europe and North America set goals to have cars use clean energy by 2035, Tung said.

Components and peripherals for EVs such as passive components, charging piles, charging devices, management system, ICs and network communication devices will all become new business opportunities for the Taiwan IT industry, Tung noted.

Tung also pointed out that Pegatron is pushing to secure its component supply in a bid to minimize the impact from component shortages, and is seeing demand for PC and network equipment remain in high gear.

Pegatron chairman TH Tung
Photo: Michael Lee, Digitimes, March 2021