The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday rejected a proposed merger between Holiday Entertainment Co (好樂迪) and Cashbox Partyworld Co (錢櫃) for the third time, saying it would create a monopoly.
Prior to Wednesday, the commission had twice rejected the application of the two karaoke operators to combine their business operations — in March 2007 and April last year — but both were rescinded by the Executive Yuan after the companies filed appeals.
After a thorough review, the commission said it still believed that there were no convincing arguments that the advantages of the proposed merger to the overall economy would exceed the disadvantages of restricting competition in the karaoke market.
The commission said Holiday and Cashbox, the nation’s top two biggest karaoke operators have a combined market share of more than 50 percent nationwide.
The two karaoke operators hold more than 90 percent of the market share in the Greater Taipei area, which is the sector’s core market.
“The merger of the two companies would create a monopoly and make it difficult for other karaoke operators to compete,” commission vice chairman Wu Shiow-ming (吳秀明) told reporters yesterday.
Wu said a merger could also weaken the competitiveness of other karaoke operators.
Moreover, any merger may negatively impact on both upstream karaoke tape agencies and end consumers, Wu said, adding that market competition was the best protection for consumers.
Morris Li (李俊德), a financial department director at Holiday, yesterday expressed regret over the FTC’s decision, saying the merger could help the two companies save around NT$100 million (US$2.96 million) a year amid the economic downturn.
Li said Holiday, with around 50 karaoke stores nationwide, saw its revenue drop 3.43 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, as consumers cut back on spending.
“The situation appears to be getting worse,” Li said by telephone.
Li said the company would decide during its next board meeting at the end of this month on whether to file another appeal.
Wu said the FTC understood that the purpose of the merger between the two companies was to save costs but said that merger was not the only way to achieve cost savings.
“Businesses should try to compete in order to survive, even during economic downturns,” Wu said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last