Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) yesterday affirmed its twA+ long-term corporate credit rating and twA-1 short-term credit rating for both Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) and Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大), the rating agency said in separate statements.
The outlook on these two companies' long-term ratings is stable, Taiwan Ratings, the local arm of Standard & Poor's Ratings Service, added in the statements.
Taiwan Ratings said the rating for Taiwan Cellular reflects the company's leading position in the nation's mobile telephony market, its good operating margins, stable cash flow and satisfactory financial profile.
Taiwan's wireless telecommunications market has experienced significant consolidation.
In July 2001, Taiwan Cellular acquired southern-based operator Trans Asia Telecommunications (
That figure compares with the 35 percent share that state-owned Chunghwa Telecom Co (
In April 2004, Far EasTone completed the acquisition of KG Telecommunications.
Taiwan Ratings expects the consolidation trend will help Taiwan Cellular maintain its leading market position amid less acute competition in terms of tariff rates and handset subsidies.
However, since the penetration rate in Taiwan's wireless telecommunications market exceeds 100 percent, Taiwan Ratings expects the market growth rate to fall below 10 percent over the next two to three years.
Taiwan Cellular has changed its investment policy as regards its shareholdings in Chunghwa Telecom. Taiwan Cellular, together with TransAsia, sold 122 million shares in Chunghwa Telecom in January, leaving it with a stake of 312.57 million shares in its major competitor.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS