Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd (遠傳電信), Taiwan’s third-biggest telecoms operator, said yesterday that it would probably be possible to make its mobile content available in China, or to China Mobile (中國移動) this year.
That could make it the first local telecoms operator to provide such services to Chinese telecoms.
Far EasTone launched its application store, called “S Mart,” last October to strong interest from Chinese-speaking communities.
The store has accumulated more than 75,000 application downloads since its launch, with customers averaging 4.2 application downloads per month.
Far EasTone has an agreement with telecoms group Conexsus to set up an Asia Development center to provide more contents and services, vice chairman Jan Nilsson told investors.
Separately, Far EasTone said it planned to increase by about 34 percent its investment on network upgrades this year to NT$8.6 billion (US$268 million) from NT$6.4 billion, in order to provide more integrated wireless multi-media services.
Far EasTone said net income would slide 0.2 percent to NT$2.29 billion (US$71 million), or NT$0.7 per share, in the current quarter, compared with the NT$2.3 billion it earned during the same period last year. Revenues are expected to rise 1.5 percent to NT$15.11 billion this quarter from NT$14.88 billion a year earlier, it said.
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