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Chunghwa Telecom aims to double its 3G subscriber base

A model holds up Chunghwa Telecom's latest 3G phone at a press conference yesterday. Chunghwa Telecom chairman Hochen Tan said that the CHT9100 is the lightest handset on the market and tailormade for young businesspeople. PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) aims to more than double the number of its third-generation (3G) subscribers next year as low-priced handsets enabling high-speed transmission may finally be available to the masses, the nation's largest telecommunications service company said yesterday.

Taiwanese mobile operators have been striving to expand their 3G subscriber base to drive sluggish revenues, but they were forced to cut their subscription forecast as the high price tag of 3G handsets has left most consumers out in the cold.

Chunghwa Telecom, which controls around 40 percent of the mobile phone service market, earlier this year trimmed 15 percent off its forecast to 850,000 3G users for this year.

"The growth [in the number of subscribers] will be more evident next year, as most major handset makers are mulling lowering prices in the second quarter," Chunghwa Telecom chairman Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) said.

The price of a 3G mobile phone could fall significantly from more than NT$10,000 (US$300) at present to as low as NT$5,000 per unit next year -- closer to the price of a 2G model, Hochen said.

As a result, Chunghwa Telecom predicted that it would be able to add 1 million more 3G users next year, expanding its total 3G customer base to 1.85 million -- although only 43 percent of the current number actually own a 3G phone.

Overall, Chunghwa Telecom said 3G phone users would exceed 2 million by the end of next year, Shih Mu-piao (石木標), a Chunghwa Telecom spokesman, said.

That would raise 3G penetration rate to more than 10 percent of around 20 million local mobile users next year, Shih said.

Smaller rival Vibo Telecom Inc (威寶電信) also projected an increase in its 3G subscriber number next year to 2 million from 700,000 at present, company president David Wang (王柏堂) told reporters on Thursday.

To increase its presence in the 3G market, Chunghwa Telecom plans to spend NT$300 million on procuring phones from local handset maker Dopod International Corp (多普達國際) and target mostly corporate customers.

Dopod sells handsets in Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region for parent company High Tech Computer Corp (宏達電), the world's biggest maker of smartphones operating on Microsoft Corp's system.

To expand its 3G coverage, Chunghwa Telecom hopes to increase its 3G base stations by 50 percent to 4,500 units in the first half of next year, Shih said.

That number, however, would be still much lower than the telecom company's 2G base stations,which total 8,000 units.

Chunghwa Telecom's shares advanced 1.19 percent to NT$59.5 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, outperforming the TAIEX's 0.61 percent gain.
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