Shares of Chunghwa Telecom Co (
The stock price of Chunghwa Telecom rose 3.33 percent, or NT$2, to close at NT$62 yesterday, outperforming broad market's 2.23 percent rise, after the Chinese-language Commercial Times said the telephone company received the approval from the International Olympic Committee to broadcast the 2008 Olympics games on multimedia platforms.
"The project is still under review," Chunghwa Telecom said in a company statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The right to broadcast the Games would bring limited income from mobile ads for Chunghwa Telecom, but would spur subscription of its Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) service, said Lu Chia-lin (呂家霖), who tracks the telecom industry for Yuanta Core Pacific Securities (元大京華證券).
"As voice traffic is slowing down and broadband service nears saturation, Chunghwa Telecom needs to seek growth in the new IPTV business, following the lead of some European telecom operators," Lu said.
Chunghwa Telecom said earlier this month that it was aiming to nearly triple its IPTV customer base from the current 350,000 users to 1 million. It has stepped up talks with Chinese telecom companies for content cooperation ahead of next year's Olympics.
"We will meet China Mobile Communications Corp (中國移動) this week to discuss cooperating to deliver anything about the Olympics to our subscribers," Shih Mu-piao (石木標), a Chunghwa Telecom spokesman, said by telephone.
Shih and Chunghwa Telecom vice president Lin Jen-hon (林仁紅) will represent the company in meetings arranged by China Mobile, the biggest Chinese mobile operator, about possible collaboration. China Mobile has invited a dozen global telecom firms for talks.
Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) shares rose 3.91 percent and 3.9 percent respectively on optimism they could benefit from the Olympics by working with Chinese telecom firms.
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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],”
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
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