Sales of mobile phones in Taiwan are expected to rise nearly 1 percent to 7.2 million units this year, helped by aggressive promotions by local telecoms operators, a Taipei-based market researcher said yesterday.
To boost third-generation (3G) subscriptions, more telecoms companies, including industry leader Chungwha Telecom Co (中華電信), have started offering free 3G phones bundled with a two-year contract for new subscribers.
The promotional activities should also boost the numbers of 3G handsets sold this year to about 40 percent of total sales, up from 28 percent in the final quarter of last year, said Joyce Chen, an analyst at local market researcher Market Intelligence Center (MIC, 資訊市場情報中心).
In the first quarter, handset sales grew 6.7 percent from the previous quarter to 1.9 million units, MIC’s data showed. 3G handsets made up around 36 percent of the sales, or 679,000 units, the research house said.
As of May 31, the nation’s 3G users numbered 8.6 million, data from telecoms regulator the National Communications Commission showed.
The average selling price of a mobile phone dropped to NT$5,882, mainly because of the promotional activities launched by Chunghwa Telecom for three low-price, entry-level 3G models, to spur replacement demand, Chen said.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Taiwanese prosecutors suspect that three people successfully smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after first exporting them to Japan, people familiar with the matter said. The trio was detained last week by the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license from Washington. The move marked Taiwan’s first public crackdown on AI chip diversion after years of pressure from the US to take a more active role in curtailing
RSS