The production value of Taiwan's telecommunications sector rose 34.5 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier on rising demand from telecom service providers and small- and medium-sized enterprises. According to statistics released by the Industry & Technology Intelligence Services (ITIS) , the telecommunications sector had a production value of NT$161.1 billion (US$5.1 billion) in the first three months of 2010. The ITIS, set up by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to provide market information to the industrial sector, attributed the sector's high year-on-year growth to strong demand and the low baseline set in the first quarter of 2009 when the worldwide economic slump was at its worst. The market researcher said it expects the robust global demand to be sustained throughout the year and drive production value up 18 percent year-on-year to NT$769.1 billion. The production value of local mobile phone makers in the January-March period rose 43.4 percent from a year earlier largely on successful marketing strategies employed by Motorola and Sony Ericsson, the ITIS said. As a result, shipments of Taiwan-made handsets to the U.S., Europe and Asia in the first quarter were better than expected. The personal mobile device segment, on the other hand, was hurt by weaker demand for personal navigation devices (PNDs) from the U.S. and Europe and competition from PND-equipped handsets. But the impact was mitigated to some extent as Garmin Corp. started selling its products to China and TomTom International launched low-priced models in North America. In the first quarter, production value of Taiwan's PND sector rose 0.7 percent from a year earlier to NT$23.9 billion, the statistics showed. The wireless local area network (WLAN) sector saw its production value rose 90.9 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier to NT$14.7 billion on strong demand from notebook and netbook computer makers, the ITIS said. Local makers of digital subscriber line customer premise equipment (DSL CPE) enjoyed a 12.1 percent rise in production value from a year earlier to NT$11.1 billion as new wireless technology boosted demand for the devices, the ITIS said. 