Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation's biggest telephone service company, said yesterday it would not rule out extending a stock buyback program to the end of the year as part of its longer-term efforts to boost return on investment.
In the firm's first buyback program, Chunghwa Telecom spent about NT$11.5 billion (US$349.48 million) to repurchase 192 million common shares between February and April this year.
The company's net book value rose to NT$39.65 per share from the previous NT$38.86.
"We will conduct more stock repurchase programs at the proper time and proper prices," said chairman Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) during an investor conference.
After the share buybacks, Chunghwa Telecom's outstanding shares dropped nearly 2 percent to 9.46 billion shares, albeit still higher than its local rivals -- Far EasTone Telecommunications Co's (
"Chunghwa Telecom will gradually reduce its outstanding shares to a proper level ... which could be around 7 billion shares," chief executive officer Hank Wang (
Chunghwa Telecom, which is 42 percent owned by the government, may take 10 years to hit that target, Wang said.
As of yesterday, shares of Chungwha Telecom have dropped 10.6 percent to NT$54 since the beginning of this month, as the large-scale share sale was delayed from its original date in the middle of last month.
At the earliest, the plan to sell a total of about 800 million shares in the US and at home would take place late this month, the company said.
Chungwha Telecom said earlier last month that net income declined 8.8 percent to NT$22.19 billion in the first six months due to a one-time outlay for an early retirement program.
The company looked on track to achieve its full-year earnings forecast of NT$44.24 billion, which would be 7 percent lower than the NT$47.65 billion it earned last year.
Sales are expected to rise less than 0.5 percent to NT$184.2 billion this year from NT$183.38 billion last year, it said. However, it is hoping that it could raise the growth rate higher to about 1 percent.
"We are hoping for one to two percent growth," company president Lu Shyue-ching (
During the first half, Chung-hwa Telecom generated NT$90.59 billion in revenue, compared with NT$89.72 billion in the same period last year.
Chunghwa Telecom said it would stick to its goal of increasing its third-generation (3G) customer base to 800,000 users by the end of this year. It now has 520,000 3G subscribers, which is still a small share of its total mobile phone subscriber base of 8.29 million.
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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