Handset subsidies planned
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Taiwan's dominant phone company, plans to offer NT$4 billion (US$118 million) handset subsidies next year to bolster market share on an island, where there are more cell phones than people.
Chunghwa Telecom, the nation's No. 2 mobile-phone service company, denied an The company expects to offer an average NT$2,000 discount per handset to 2 million customers, including existing subscribers whose two-year contracts expire next year, spokeswoman Shen Fu-fu (沈馥馥) said. The company, which receives about 37 percent of revenue from mobile phone services, had about 8 million mobile-phone customers last month, Shen said. "The amount of subsidy won't vary too much from this year's," she said. Chunghwa Telecom's third-quarter profit rose 4.5 percent to NT$12.5 billion from NT$12.0 billion a year earlier. Sales rose 1 percent to NT$45.9 billion. Semiconductor packagers rise Daniel Heyler, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said companies in the computer-chip packaging business will probably post stronger earnings in the next few quarters. The shares of chip packagers such as Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (日月光) and rivals rose after Heyler upgraded the chip assembly industry to "buy" from "neutral" on Friday. Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, the world's No. 2 packager of computer chips, climbed NT$1.00, or 3.2 percent, to NT$32.50. Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品), the third largest, surged NT$2.20, or 6.8 percent, to NT$34.70. Companies in the business will probably post stronger earnings in the next few quarters, Heyler said. Chip packagers cut silicon wafers into chips, attach conductive wiring to the silicon, and encase the assembled product in insulating materials such as plastic. New virus alert Computer users need to aware of W32.Mimail.C@mm, as Symantec Corp, a anti-virus software maker, has received 38 submissions from its customers regarding the affection of the computer virus, a company statement said yesterday. W32.Mimail.C@mm is a variant of W32.Mimail.A@mm, which spreads by email and steals information from infected computers via Windows operation system and was first discovered on Aug. 4 this year, the statement said. Besides theft of information, the variant worm will further launch attack to certain websites and perform a Denial of Service, the statement said. To prevent from the infection, Symantec suggested personal and corporate computer users to apply a patch from Microsoft website, or download the most recent virus definitions. HSBC expands in China HSBC Holdings Plc, the world's second-largest lender by market value, said one of its Hong Kong commercial banking units won approval from Chinese authorities to expand its yuan currency business to three more Chinese cities. HSBC, which has been offering local currency services in Shanghai since 1997 and Shenzhen since 1998, can now offer yuan services in Qingdao, Tianjin and Guangzhou through its Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp unit, the bank said in a statement. Those are the only five cities open to overseas banks. NT dollar falls The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.045 to finish at NT$34.025 on the Taiwan foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$430 million.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last