David Chan, a Manchester United soccer fan in Hong Kong, says Hutchison Whampoa Ltd's (和記黃埔) new mobile-phone service doesn't let him track the team's latest goals as closely as he'd like.
"I can barely see the ball," said Chan, a 33-year-old computer engineer who downloads video clips of Manchester United games to his handset.
PHOTO: EPA
Other gripes: The phone's battery dies so quickly that he has to carry a spare, Chan said, and switching from the new video-enabled network to the more widely available older network can take more than a minute.
Hong Kong is the seventh market in Hutchison's US$22 billion bet that so-called third-generation (3G) mobile services can make money -- a strategy that hasn't paid off yet in countries such as the UK and Italy. Less than a month after introducing its "3" mobile service in Hong Kong in January, Hutchison cut prices by as much as a third to spur sales.
"It's still too soon for 3G technology," said Paul Chan, a fund manager at Invesco Asia Ltd in Hong Kong. "I'm not betting it will do better in Hong Kong than in Europe. You'd have to believe in a bit of magic."
Hong Kong-based Hutchison, headed by billionaire chairman Li Ka-shing (
The service lets users watch video clips, play games and view Web sites that are downloaded over an Internet connection seven times faster than older mobile networks offer.
Hutchison's third-generation mobile services worldwide posted a HK$3.9 billion (US$500.5 million) loss before tax and interest in the first half of last year because of fewer European subscribers than expected and startup and marketing costs.
The loss may widen to HK$12 billion for the full year and climb to HK$13 billion this year and next, said Danie Schutte, a telecom analyst at CLSA Ltd in Hong Kong.
Li said a year ago he aimed to sign up 1 million high-speed mobile users in both the UK and Italy last year. Combined users in the two markets totaled just 560,000 by year-end after technical glitches caused Motorola Inc and NEC Corp to delay shipping handsets that carry the service.
Poor video quality, difficulty connecting to other networks and short battery life -- phones lose power after about an hour of video downloads -- may deter users from the 3 service in Hong Kong, said Chay Kai Kong, an analyst at Pioneer Investments.
Arun Sarin, chief executive of Vodafone Group Plc, said on Feb. 24 that current 3G services are "unacceptable." The world's No. 1 cellular company plans to introduce the service in the second half of this year.
Services available to 3 users in Hong Kong include movie trailers, local television news and soccer match highlights with a delay of about an hour, adult photos supplied by Playboy Enterprises Inc and video conferencing.
Some users say shortcomings such as limited Internet access don't justify switching to the 3 service from existing mobile networks.
Web-connected mobile phones on existing networks -- known as 2.5G phones -- let users surf the Internet without restrictions, while Hutchison's 3G service limits users to a choice of 12 to 15 Web sites, television channels and other content providers. Users pay for each download beyond what's covered in their monthly subscription package.
"I'm locked out a lot of content because I can only get access to what Hutchison makes available," said Schutte, who subscribes to Hutchison's 3 service.
Three weeks after the 3 service's Jan. 27 debut in Hong Kong, Hutchison slashed the lowest monthly subscription rate by a third and cut the price of new handsets to less than some phones that run on rivals' slower networks. The cheapest monthly package now costs HK$183, 10 percent less than the average Hong Kong mobile-phone subscription.
"The first six months will be tough," Chay said. "To build a critical mass will take at least two years."
Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc, which became the world's first phone company to provide 3G wireless services in October 2001, has succeeded after a slow start. Japan's biggest mobile-phone company took almost two years to sign up 1 million customers to its so-called FOMA service.
Other mobile-phone companies have delayed entering the market for high-speed services.
Deutsche Telekom AG and France Telecom SA, which led an industry-wide investment of more than US$100 billion in third-generation permits in Europe since 2000, have delayed introducing the service. Dutch carrier Royal KPN NV, the No. 3 operator in Germany, said it plans to start its 3G service there in the second half of this year.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
RSS