Taiwan Cellular Corp (
The Taipei-based company posted net income of NT$14.9 billion on NT$58.7 billion of sales last year.
"Changes will come in a couple of months when we understand the competitive situation," Daniel Tsai (
Taiwan Cellular said it may cut its holding in rival Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation's biggest phone company, as well as stakes in non-core businesses to reverse a more than 10 percent slide in last year's net income. Settling loans Taiwan Cellular drew for such investments will help cut interest costs, some analysts said.
"It's good Taiwan Cellular is increasing its focus on its core business," said Dominic Grant, an analyst with INB Securities Ltd, who has a "hold" rating for the shares.
Taiwan Cellular's net debt last year more than tripled to NT$54.6 billion from 2001, raising the debt-to-asset ratio to 47 percent from 29 percent a year earlier.
In December, Taiwan Cellular paid NT$27.7 billion to buy 550 million shares in Chunghwa Telecom. It joined Cathay Life Insurance Co (
Tsai, who's also vice chairman at Fubon Financial, Taiwan's second-largest financial services company, said he intends to be elected chairman of Taiwan Cellular. Fubon Financial owns 17 percent of Taiwan Cellular.
While Taiwan Cellular's shares have lost more than 28 percent in the last 12 months, Chunghwa Telecom gained almost 5 percent.
Taiwan Cellular will delay the start of a service that will allow users to download information and video clips from the Internet at about 10 times the speed of older networks.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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