Carrefour Corp Taiwan (家樂福), the nation’s largest hypermarket operator, yesterday said it was expanding its business to mobile phone services to boost revenues.
Carrefour will offer telecom service at its 55 outlets nationwide for pre-paid mobile subscribers via subsidiary Carrefour Telecommunications Co (家樂福電信) today after a soft launch in January.
Carrefour Telecommunications is leasing network space from Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s top telecom operator.
During its promotional period, Carrefour will offer a program that enables cardholders to earn one point for every dollar spent at Carrefour stores. A hundred points can be exchanged for one minute of telephone time.
“By doing so, we hope to increase customers’ visit frequency and time spent at the outlet, and also help Carrefour create a new source of revenue,” said Li Yi-jen (李宜真), general manager and director of Carrefour Telecommunications.
Carrefour has 3.8 million members, all of whom are potential subscribers to the mobile phone service, Li said. Most members usually pay NT$600 in telecom charges per month, Li added.
Carrefour posted lower revenues for the third quarter at 365 million euros (US$467 million), down 1.4 percent year on year, after contaminated milk powder curtailed consumer purchases.
The firm first tapped cellphone services in Europe 10 years ago. It now offers services in collaboration with telecom operators in Belgium, France, Italy and Poland.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
RSS