Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), Taiwan's third-largest mobile-phone operator, expects sales to rise 5 percent this year, outpacing the industry's expansion, as more people use data services.
"At Far Eastone alone, we've raised our target to grow 5 percent in volume," company president Jan Nilsson said in an interview broadcast yesterday. For the industry, "we're looking for 4 percent growth in volume, and 2 percent in revenue. This extra growth is mainly coming from non-voice revenue."
Far EasTone, which invested NT$4.5 billion (US$143 million) to roll out high-speed technology that allows users to download music and movie clips from the Web, is trying to encourage customers to spend more with their handsets. There are more mobile-phone subscribers than people in Taiwan because some customers have multiple numbers.
About 10 percent of the company's revenue comes from data communication, said Nilsson, who was attending Asia's biggest telecommunications trade show, CommunicAsia 2005, in Singapore.
"I want to end the year with the consolidated percentage point being 12 to 13 percent for data. It would be a challenge to reach that," Nilsson said.
The company had a 32.5 percent share of Taiwan's mobile market, Nilsson said. That compares with the 30 percent it had in November, according to government figures.
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