Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation's biggest telephone operator, expects its profit to increase this year, helped by higher sales and a reduction of its workforce.
Sales this year will probably rise between 5 percent and 6 percent, Chunghwa Telecom chairman Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) said yesterday. He declined to comment on the size of the profit increase.
"With the revenue higher and the cost control, there's no reason not to see the profit better than last year," he said.
The comments, coming as Chunghwa Telecom aims to trim costs by paying workers to retire early, contrast with analysts' forecasts of a profit drop.
Capital spending will probably rise to NT$27 billion (US$831 million) this year from about NT$24 billion last year, Hochen said.
His profit forecast also comes at a time when the company, along with Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政), is widely rumored to replace Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co (遠通電收) in managing the electronic toll collection (ETC) system on freeways.
But the company remained tight-lipped about the matter.
"We haven't received any notice from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications [on taking over the ETC system]," senior vice president Chang Feng-hsiung (
Unlike the microwave technology used by Far Eastern Electronic, Chunghwa is banking on infrared technology for the system it used when it was first commissioned by the government to test-run the ETC system in 1998. It was forced to quit its the project when its budget was canceled by the legislature in 2002.
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