Taiwan Star Cellular Corp (台灣之星), a telecom arm of conglomerate Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團), yesterday said it was seeking to acquire Asia Pacific Telecom Co (亞太電信) in a bid to consolidate the resources of the two companies.
Taiwan Star president Cliff Lai (賴弦五) said his company is sitting on huge funds and has a 4G license, a broad distribution network and plenty of talent for business expansion.
The merger with Asia Pacific Telecom is expected to create synergies between the two companies and boost Taiwan Star’s competitive edge in the local market, Lai said.
While Taiwan Star has formally proposed to purchase Asia Pacific Telecom, local media reports have said that other companies such as Japan-based technology giant Softbank Corp and Hon Hai Group’s (鴻海集團) Ambit Microsystems Corp (國碁電子) are also eyeing Asia Pacific Telecom.
Earlier this year, Asia Pacific Telecom denied rumors of a planned acquisition by Taiwan Star, but its stock received a boost because of the market speculation.
Taiwan Star is one of two new telecom service providers in the nation that secured a 4G telecom license in October last year, the other being Ambit Microsystems.
Four other telecom operators that already provide 3G services in Taiwan — Asia Pacific Telecom, Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) — have also obtained 4G licenses.
Lai said a telecom operator needs large economies of scale to strengthen its competitive edge and a merger with Asia Pacific Telecom will help his company compete with the top three: Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile and Far EasTone.
In addition, the merger will allow the two companies to share their resources, including their base stations, and gain greater bargaining power when buying cellphones, he said.
Taiwan Star recently acquired another domestic telecom operator, Vibo Telecom Inc (威寶電信), from Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦) and Kinpo Electronics Inc (金寶電子).
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy