While Asia Pacific Broadband Wireless Communication Inc (亞太行動寬頻) was celebrating its launch of the nation's first third-generation (3G) mobile services yesterday, telecom industry analysts said the high-speed mobile Internet service is not expected to become mainstream in the market in the short term.
"The migration from current mobile service to advanced 3G services is a global trend," said Jason Lin (
Lin said flatly that the chances of 3G services gaining significant popularity in Taiwan by 2005 are very low.
PHOTO: AP
Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of fixed-line phone company Eastern Broadband Telecom Co (東森寬頻), yesterday started to offer the 3G mobile phone services -- such as movie previews, video games, or real-time news reports, targeting its sales especially at young people, businesspeople and professionals.
But Asia Pacific's high 3G handset price may scare consumers away.
Currently, Asia Pacific offers customers the Samsung X789 handset for NT$20,500 and the SK Telecom AP1000 for NT$13,500, plus a two-year subscription.
"It's not necessary for me to spend more than NT$10,000 to buy a new handset and have another phone number," said Elisa Pai, 26, a Taiwan Securities Co (台証證券) employee.
"I only use my cellphone to talk and sometimes send text messages, so I don't need those fancy services," she said.
Consumers' low demand for mobile data service is the major hurdle.
"Taiwanese like to get online, but they prefer to access the Internet at home or at the office rather than on the move," Lin said.
Mobile Internet data services such as sending short messages and checking e-mail from handsets only account for 3 percent of service operators' total revenues.
"Therefore voice service will still dominant local mobile phone market for several years, though we have 3G service now," Lin added.
Meanwhile, another market analyst poured cold water on Asia Pacific yesterday, saying its plan to attract more than 700,000 users by the end of year would be a Herculean task.
"In order to reach that target, the company has to lure more than 12,000 subscribers each month from now," said Nathan Lin (林宗賢), a telecom analyst at SinoPac Securities Corp (建華證券) in Taipei.
But with the local mobile market virtually saturated, room for expansion is limited, he said.
Lin said that even Chunghwa Telecom Co (
Another factor that may hurt new subscriptions to Asia Pacific is that the company offers fixed-number handsets only, Chiao Tung University's Lin said.
Most mobile phones used in Taiwan enable users to change phone numbers by switching SIM (subscription identification module) cards, but Asia Pacific bundles each handset with a specific phone number and customers must go to an Asia Pacific service center to change numbers, he explained.
Only 23 Asia Pacific service centers have been set up around the nation.
"The inconvenience will lower its attractiveness, because people like to use new handsets but to retain the same numbers," Lin said.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS