Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation's biggest phone company, said it would continue its relationship with local phone maker High Tech Computer Corp (HTC, 宏達電), the world's biggest maker of mobile phones running Microsoft Corp's mobile operating system. Chunghwa Telecom added that it would release more custom handsets developed for it by High Tech in the fourth quarter.
Chunghwa Telecom hopes the phones, which are customized for high-speed and data-oriented third-generation (3G) users, will boost subscriptions, Chang Shao-tung (
The mobile carrier launched its first HTC-co-branded 3G phone, the HTC9000, in June last year.
"We will continue to work closely with HTC. We plan to launch a new 3G handset made by HTC in the fourth quarter," Chang said.
Chunghwa Telecom is also considering sourcing 3G handsets from other local mobile phone vendors, including BenQ Corp (明基), Inventec Appliances Corp (英華達) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), Chang said.
Chunghwa Telecom has 7.88 million second-generation subscribers and about 500,000 3G subscribers.
Chang's remarks came after the Chinese-language Apple Daily reported yesterday that Chunghwa Telecom planned to end its relationship with HTC as demand for the co-branded handsets had dwindled because of certain functional flaws.
Chunghwa Telecom, however, said demand for the phones had exceeded expectations.
"Supply is the only constraint in some parts of the nation," the operator said in a statement released yesterday.
The firm claimed that it had sold all 10,000 units of the phones it ordered in just two months, and had to order another 10,000 phones to meet demand.
Meanwhile, Chunghwa Telecom has launched a second round of tenders for underwriters to help it sell around 800 million shares, or about 8.37 percent of the company, after the first round of tenders failed to meet the government's requirements last month.
The telecom operator hopes to announce the successful candidates on Sept. 15.
As a result of the unexpected problems with the tender process, the share sale -- originally planned for the middle of this month -- ?will be delayed.
Chunghwa Telecom said earlier this month that net income for the first seven months was NT$26.3 billion (US$800 million), or NT$2.76 per share. Revenue rose almost 1 percent year-on-year to NT$106.2 billion.
Shares of Chunghwa Telecom were down 0.18 percent to NT$54.1 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, outperforming the benchmark TAIEX.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to