Vibo Telecom Inc (威寶電信) yesterday said it planned to increase the number of high-speed 3.75G base stations to 6,000 by the end of January to boost data transmission.
To expand its customer basis and to encourage heavy data users, Vibo “has to prove to local mobile users that it can provide as good a network as our rivals do,” Vibo CEO George Chou (周鐘麒) told reporters.
The base station expansion would mainly be in urban areas in northern Taiwan to catch up with the nation’s major telecommunications companies in providing a high-speed Internet connection and data transmission, Chou said.
Chou, a former executive of the nation’s No. 2 telecoms carrier, Taiwan Mobile Corp (台灣大哥大), was hired as CEO in March to overhaul the six-year-old telecoms operator, a latecomer to the local market.
Vibo has not turned a profit since its establishment in 2005.
Vibo now operates about 5,500 3.75G base stations. By adding another NT$1.5 billion (US$49 million), Vibo would boost its base station number to between 7,000 and 7,500, Chou said.
Next year, Vibo plans to invest more on deploying its network, compared with the NT$3 billion budgeted this year, Chou said. He did not provided detailed figures because the company is still reviewing next year’s business plan.
Next year, Vibo is expected to increase the number of subscribers by 15 percent, to a minimum of more than 2 million subscribers, from 1.8 million users this year, Chou said.
Vibo’s average revenue per person has increased from NT$410 at the beginning of the year to about NT$460, thanks to a higher share of subscribers using high-tariff service plans, which grew from 4 percent to 12 percent.
To boost its customer numbers, Vibo plans to buy at least 400,000 mobile phones next year, with smartphones making up 70 percent, Chou said.
Samsung Electronics Co and HTC Corp (宏達電) would continue to be the major suppliers of Vibo, he added.
This year, Vibo bought 360,000 cellular phones for new subscribers and for existing users to extend service contracts.
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