Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation’s No.2 telecom carrier, yesterday said it expected to see net profit increase in the third quarter and that it would likely again consider purchasing local cable TV system provider Kbro Co (凱擘) after the regulatory issue was fixed.
The company projected that net income would grow 2 percent year-on-year, or 6 percent quarter-on-quarter, to NT$3.57 billion (US$111.2 million) in the current quarter, on the back of lower taxes.
Its said its margin for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), however, would fall 3.9 percentage points this quarter from a year ago, or 2.3 percentage points from last quarter, to 39 percent, because it planned to increase handset subsidies for a customer retaining program.
Revenues would rise by 1 percent year-on-year, to NT$17.46 billion this quarter, the company said.
Taiwan Mobile chief executive Harvey Chang (張孝威) also told investors yesterday that the company would consider buying Kbro after a ban on the purchase was relaxed.
The firm was forced to drop its bid to acquire Kbro because of government restrictions. The Tsai family, the biggest shareholder of Taiwan Mobile, was pursuing the deal via its own investment firm.
Meanwhile, rival Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said in an exchange filing yesterday it forecast net profit to fall to NT$11.85 billion, or an earnings per share of NT$1.22, in the July-September period, from NT$12.98 billion or NT$1.34 per share in the second quarter.
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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