Sales of mobile phones in Taiwan may fall slightly this year as local mobile service operators reduce efforts to boost new 2G subscriptions because of lower tariffs imposed by the regulator, a Taipei-based market researcher said last week.
To offset declining revenues in the wake of the new rate cuts, service operators may focus their resources on pushing their 3G and 3.5G services, the Taipei-based Market Intelligence Center (MIC, 資訊市場情報中心) said in its latest report published on Thursday.
The operators' 3G services will not be affected by the newly imposed price scheme and usually enjoy approximately a 30 percent higher average revenue per user than on 2G services.
Local mobile service operators now only offer 3.5G, or high-speed downlink packet access services, for notebook computer users to connect to the Internet on data cards at 1.8 megabit per second or 3.6 megabit per second data transmission.
The government-funded MIC forecasts that sales of cellular phones may drop 2 percent year-on-year to 7.1 million units this year. It did not provide last year's figures.
"This year, we will bring down our handset subsidies from the current NT$2,500 [US$76] per unit for new 2G subscribers, while increasing 3G phone subsidies," Lu Shyue-ching (呂學錦), chief executive of Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said earlier this year.
To further boost competition in the nation's telecoms industry, the National Communications Commission (NCC) has requested local phone companies to lower voice tariffs for 2G users by 4.88 percent annually in a three-year period.
With the new rate cuts, "mobile operators will face challenges in bolstering their revenues," the report said.
Chunghwa Telecom expects revenues to decrease by up to NT$4 billion because of the tariff reduction coupled with another 5.11 percent annual drop for broadband subscribers.
Taiwanese telecom companies are expected to increase their promotion of value-added services, such as ringback tones, to minimize the impact of the new price scheme.
In the second quarter, sales of handsets in Taiwan are expected to decrease slightly to 1.7 million units from the 1.8 million sold in the first quarter on seasonal factors, the report predicted.
In terms of market value, sales of handsets grew 7.6 percent to NT$11.1 billion compared to the fourth quarter of last year, as vendors launched more affordable 3G models priced at less than NT$10,000 apiece, the report said.
The penetration rate of 3G subscribers rose to 22 percent in the first three months of the year, the report said.
The average selling price also increased to NT$6,116, the researcher said without providing comparative figures.
The world's major mobile phone brands, including Nokia and Motorola, accounted for 80 percent of market share in the first quarter, up from 75 percent in the final quarter of last year, the report said.
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Aramco), the Saudi state-owned oil giant, yesterday posted first-quarter profits of US$26 billion, down 4.6 percent from the prior year as falling global oil prices undermine the kingdom’s multitrillion-dollar development plans. Aramco had revenues of US$108.1 billion over the quarter, the company reported in a filing on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange. The company saw US$107.2 billion in revenues and profits of US$27.2 billion for the same period last year. Saudi Arabia has promised to invest US$600 billion in the US over the course of US President Donald Trump’s second term. Trump, who is set to touch
SKEPTICAL: An economist said it is possible US and Chinese officials would walk away from the meeting saying talks were productive, without reducing tariffs at all US President Donald Trump hailed a “total reset” in US-China trade relations, ahead of a second day of talks yesterday between top officials from Washington and Beijing aimed at de-escalating trade tensions sparked by his aggressive tariff rollout. In a Truth Social post early yesterday, Trump praised the “very good” discussions and deemed them “a total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner.” The second day of closed-door meetings between US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) were due to restart yesterday morning, said a person familiar
RSS