French telecom firm Alcatel may be switching its business focus to sell third-generation (3G) network equipment as profits from the fixed-line market dry up, an industry pundit said yesterday.
"For telecom equipment vendors, in the short term, it's easier for them to make a buck from the wireless sector, especially 3G, than from the fixed-line market," said Ann Liang (梁嘉玲), a telecom market analyst at Gartner Dataquest in Taipei. "That's why Alcatel is upbeat on promoting 3G products."
Alcatel already holds significant market share in the fixed-line infrastructure sector. For example, equipment for more than 69 percent of ADSL lines currently in use in Taiwan was made by Alcatel.
In addition, because most fix-line operators have over-invested in equipment in the past few years, this year and next year may be difficult for Alcatel to make money from the fixed-line sector, Liang said.
But with Taiwan finally issuing its five 3G licenses in February, the new money may be in 3G.
"Setting up networks for 3G operators is a new and profitable business opportunity," Liang said.
Before providing high-speed mobile Internet services, 3G companies must purchase equipment, set up base stations and establish transmission networks.
According to Gartner's report released last month, the telecom infrastructure sector is likely to be the last telecom sector to recover from the downturn, with the business environment for vendors such as Alcatel expected to be sluggish through 2004.
To demonstrate its growing commitment to the Taiwan market, Alcatel has invested about US$3 million to build a 3G application center, launched in Taipei last week.
"Our center is the only such [3G testing] center set up in Taiwan that brings high-speed mobile communications to life on a real platform," said Jean-Philippe Benoist, president of Alcatel Taiwan Ltd.
The working 3G model will serve as a marketing tool demonstrating how a 3G network functions to all "potential" partners.
The company plans to show off the center to mobile operators and content providers. One such company, Taiwan 3G Mobile Network Inc (
Meanwhile, Alcatel Taiwan's new chief is optimistic about Taiwan's 3G market potential.
"The nation is poised to become one of the leading telecom countries in Asia Pacific, along with Japan and South Korea," Benoist said.
He explained that, with the number of broadband Internet subscribers and mobile-phone users growing rapidly, demand for mobile Internet services in Taiwan is high.
"I estimate by the end of next year, all 3G licensees will begin to offer services," he said.
Meanwhile, another market watcher said launching service and gaining popularity are two different things.
"The market demand won't really pick up until 2005," said Nathan Lin (林宗賢), a telecom analyst at National Securities Corp (建弘證券). He predicts even if all license holders launch services by next year, the penetration rate of 3G service will still be less than 10 percent by the end of that year.
Lin said currently public demand for mobile data service is still very limited.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts