Seeking a new growth engine, Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd (遠傳電信) aims to boost its data business to make a bigger share of 20 percent by the end of the year by selling more new mobile devices, including mobile-Internet devices (MID) and Android phones, a company executive said yesterday.
The nation’s third-largest telecoms operator said its data revenues grew to make up about 14 percent of its total revenues in the first three months of the year as it offered diverse gadgets from netbooks to game consoles, compared with less than 10 percent two years ago.
Far EasTone hopes that adding more new mobile devices such as MIDs and Android-based cellular phones to its product lineup later this year will help it boost its data business, Far EasTone vice president Samuel Yuan (袁興) said.
The company is also considering selling electronic readers among the different gadgets enabling wireless Internet access on 3.5-generation (3.5G) technology in the future, Yuan said.
Far EasTone increased its 3.5G data card subscriptions to 180,000 users as of last month from 170,000 in May, company tallies showed.
It is now selling a MID from local electronics maker BenQ Corp (明基) that is powered by Intel Corp’s Atom chip at NT$1,890 (US$57.3) per unit, along with a three-year service contract, which entails a minimum monthly bill of NT$775.
Most MIDs are sold by telecom operators, who bundle the units with services in Asia, Europe and US, as telecom companies are more willing to subsidize such devices to increase data revenues, said Michael Chen (陳武宏), director of Intel’s embedded sales and ultra mobility group in Asia Pacific.
Taiwanese electronic makers are the major suppliers of MIDs sold around the world and leading manufacturers include Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) and Inventec Corp (英業達).
Alphabet Inc’s Google on Tuesday announced plans to buy a New York office building for US$2.1 billion, confirming its push into the US’ largest city despite the COVID-19 teleworking trend. This is the largest real-estate purchase in the US for an office building since the beginning of the global spread of COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal quoted Real Capital Analytics as saying. Google already rents the premises in Manhattan, which are located on the site of a former railroad terminal in the Hudson Square neighborhood. The Silicon Valley giant envisions a campus with a total surface area of 160,000m2 by mid-2023
Cash-strapped developer China Evergrande Group (恆大集團) has begun repaying investors in its wealth management products with real estate, said Hengda Real Estate Group Co Ltd (恆大地產), its main unit. Evergrande, with more than US$300 billion in liabilities, is in the throes of a liquidity crisis that has left it racing to raise funds to pay its many lenders and suppliers. It has a bond interest payment of US$83.5 million due on Thursday. The company said on WeChat on Saturday that investors interested in redeeming wealth management products for physical assets should contact their investment consultants or visit local offices. Financial news outlet Caixin on
‘CORE VALUES’: The contract chipmaker did not specify why the employees were dismissed, but media reports said they had leaked information about customer orders Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has fired seven of its employees for violating the company’s “core values,” the world’s largest contract chipmaker said yesterday. While the company did not disclose exactly why it fired the seven employees, local media reports earlier in the day said that the employees had leaked confidential information about customer orders. In a statement, the company said that it fired the seven at once, adding that it released an internal notice last week to inform the entire company of the move ahead of the four-day Mid-Autumn Festival holilday, which ended on Tuesday. TSMC said it fired the seven
MILD ADJUSTMENT: Two previous efforts failed to curtail mortgage financing, although the new measures should not affect property prices, the central bank governor said The central bank yesterday tightened credit controls for second-home mortgages in specific areas and purchases of plots of land, especially in industrial parks. However, the nation’s top monetary policymaker kept its policy rate at a record-low 1.125 percent for the sixth consecutive quarter, despite revising up its GDP growth forecast for this year from 5.08 percent to 5.75 percent. “Board members factored in economic uncertainty at home and around the world,” central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) said, adding that growing inflationary pressure was a temporary phenomenon induced by bad weather and a low base effect for oil prices. International fuel price increases
RSS