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Taiwan Mobile Co plans to diversify to boost revenues

Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation's second-largest telecom operator, is looking to broadband and other services to increase revenue as a result of a stagnant mobile voice service sector and a trend toward telecom convergence, a company executive said yesterday.

Although its mobile phone business contributed 90 percent of the company's revenues, corporate, broadband and cable TV businesses would become the biggest drivers in the future, president Harvey Chang (張孝威) said.

"This year will be a period of strong momentum after several acquisitions last year," Chang said.

Revenue generated from broadband services and cable TV subscriptions would grow by double-digit percentages annually for the next two to three years, the company said.

Taiwan Mobile hopes to improve from fourth to third position in the cable TV industry -- a market of 4.6 million households -- the company said.

Chang said it was an easily attainable goal for Taiwan Mobile to boost cable TV subscriptions from approximately 500,000 users to 1 million.

James Jeng (鄭俊卿), president of the company's broadband affiliate, Taiwan Fixed Networks Media (台固媒體有限公司), said it was necessary to make acquisitions to achieve the target.

"We have approached several parties [about an acquisition], but the price much too high," Jeng said.

A reasonable price would be somewhere between NT$30,000 and NT$35,000 per subscriber, he said.

Meanwhile, industry leader Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), which is also looking to diversify, hopes to increase Internet TV subscriptions to 1 million by the end of the year by offering discounts on Sony TVs to new subscribers.

Chunghwa Telecom and Taiwan Mobile are also looking to foreign markets for growth by investing in next-generation WiMAX technology, among other sectors.

This year, Taiwan Mobile hopes to increase its fiber-to-the-building users from 800 to 10,000, Jeng said. Cable modem users are expected to increase by 37 percent during the same period, from 62,000 to 85,000, he said.

Taiwan Mobile's net income, including Taiwan Fixed Network Media and Taiwan Fixed Networks Corp (台灣固網), grew nearly 30 percent to NT$1.59 billion last month compared with NT$1.24 billion a year ago.
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