Vibo Telecom Inc (
Offering attractive voice tariffs and affordable handsets, Vibo has gained an almost 10 percent share of the nation's 1.9 million third-generation cellphone users since the company launched its high-speed services last December.
Vibo's success has prompted major players Chunghwa Telecom Co (
Vibo has ambitions of breaking the dominance of the big three and aims to boost its market share to around 25 percent, or 750,000 users, by the end of this year, Vibo chairman Rock Hsu (
Thanks to the rapid growth in subscribers, Hsu said, "Vibo will break even in September next year."
In its first year of operation, Vibo posted losses of NT$869 million (US$27.14 million), or NT$0.87 a share, on sales of NT$1.51 billion. That brought the company's accumulated losses to around NT$2.17 billion.
"An increase in subscribers makes it possible for a telecom operator to reduce fixed costs per unit and further improve the company's bottom line, as the investments in equipment required are huge," said Lu Chia-lin (呂家霖), a telecom industry analyst with Yuanta Core Pacific Securities (元大京華證券).
However, Vibo is still expected to post losses this year, as most companies do in their first few years of operation.
Hsu said Vibo has no plans to raise funds.
"We still have sufficient cash in hand," he said.
Vibo obtained NT$9.2 billion in syndicated loans and NT$5 billion in proceeds from share sales last year, which will be spent on buying new equipment, according to the company.
Compal Electronics Inc (
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day