I missed this. Not sure when it came out though but BusinessWeek recently announced their 2008 top 100 IT companies. So how did Taiwan do? According to BusinessWeek:
Despite regular predictions that an ever more confident China will eclipse Taiwan, the island remains Asia's clear technology leader. This year's version of the BusinessWeek IT 100 has 37 Asian names, up from 35 a year ago, and once again, Taiwan dominates the list. With 16 companies (including Foxconn International, listed in Hong Kong but controlled by Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision), the island is behind only the U.S., which has 36.
Yep, out more than 30,000 tech companies surveyed around the world, 16% of the top 100 are Taiwanese. Taiwan's tech super-highway is still going strong and continues to astound the world. So which Taiwanese companies were the winners and losers: See the list below:
| 2008 | 2007 | Company |
| 9 | 29 | ASUSTek |
| 10 | 43 | High Tech Computers |
| 17 | 4 | Hon Hai Precision Industries |
| 31 | 63 | Compal Electronics |
| 40 | 28 | Wistron |
| 50 | 59 | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) |
| 52 | 85 | Quanta Computers |
| 53 | -- | AU Opto Electronics |
| 62 | -- | Transcend |
| 71 | 92 | Acer |
| 73 | -- | Chicony Electronics |
| 76 | 67 | PowerChip Semiconductors |
| 82 | 77 | Inventec |
| 83 | -- | Foxconn Technology |
| 86 | -- | Delta Electronics |
| 88 | 96 | Advanced Semiconductor Engineering |
| 92 | -- | Nan Ya PCB |
| 93 | 42 | Nanya Technology |
And who lost out?
Well, Siliconware Precision Industries (ranked 53 in 2007) and D-Link (ranked 99 in 2007) dropped out from the list. But some other companies snuck themselves in.
BusinessWeek does comment on their methodology and their concerns that US tech companies are becoming increasingly less dominant.
How do you pick the best-performing tech companies in the world? At BusinessWeek, we sort through the financial results of 30,500 publicly traded companies and rank the tech players on four criteria: shareholder return, return on equity, total revenues, and revenue growth. The companies leading the list are those with the lowest aggregate ranking.
Amazon.com and Apple took the top two spots this year. Still, the dominance of U.S. companies is in decline: The country has 33 companies among the IT 100 this year, down from 43 in 2007. When we first started compiling the list in 1998 to rank tech's top performers, 75 of the winners were U.S. companies.
What is interesting from this list is five of the Taiwanese companies listed above (Compal, Hon Hai, Inventec, Wistron and Quanta) are all contract manufacturers. And of course, TSMC is a pure-play foundry. Many of the top-tech companies do not have brands but rather just do ODM/EMS/Contract manufacturing for more established brands.
It still amazes me that this little Island we call home (390 km long x 140 km wide with approximately 23 million people) can continue to produce the elite organizations in technology. This is a significant motivation to continue this blog!
I wonder how many people in the western world know about these companies? Probably hardly any! Is it important for them to know? Probably not! But in the context of the geopolitics of the region, and the realization that Taiwan is essential to the Global economy may give people pause for thought when thinking about cross-strait relations with China. Enough said!
BusinessWeek 1: Asia's Top 10 IT Companies
BusinessWeek 2: The InfoTech 100
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