Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s biggest telecoms operator, aims to increase its revenue by 3 percent annually over the next three years, benefiting from rapidly growing demand for video streaming and enterprise services after launching its high-speed 4G service.
The growth goes against the industry’s trend, as the nation’s telecoms revenues have barely grown over the past five years.
High-speed 4G technology might provide a new growth catalyst for local telecoms operators and be open to more applications.
4G LEADER
Chunghwa Telecom has garnered 2.34 million 4G subscribers since the service debuted in May last year, making the company the nation’s largest 4G service provider.
“We will try every effort to develop new technologies and then make those technologies new sources of our revenue and profit,” chairman Rick Tsai (蔡力行) said during a group interview yesterday.
“I hope Chunghwa Telecom will have sustainable growth. This growth will not be rapid, but I hope to see some results in the next two to three years… Three percent [annual growth] will be our target,” he said.
Tsai also said enterprise business would outpace overall corporate growth, due to growing problems with Internet security, namely hacking.
Years ago, hacking rarely appeared on the agenda of the board’s meetings, he said.
He expects revenue from the company’s corporate customers to contribute a bigger share than the current 30 percent in the foreseeable future.
EYEING PROFITS
Tsai yesterday reiterated his goal of making the company’s 4G business profitable in 2017 after recovering most of the costs from the 4G license fee and network construction next year.
Tsai was tapped as Chunghwa Telecom’s chairman more than a year ago.
Previously, he was chief executive of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電).
To expand the company’s 4G bandwidth, Chunghwa Telecom said it would join the next-round auction of the 2,600-megahertz spectrum in October to cope with fast-growing demand for bandwidth.
Chunghwa Telecom’s 4G users use 8 gigabytes per month on average — double the amount that 3G customers use, it said.
FUTURE PLANS
“If we do not obtain new spectrum, we will be short of bandwidth within two years. That is a worry commonly shared among our rivals,” president Shih Mu-piao (石木標) said.
This year, the company would still focus on expanding its 4G coverage, Shih said.
By the end of this year, Chughwa Telecom plans to add 4,500 new base stations, which would boost the company’s 4G population coverage to 99 percent, he said.
The number of its base stations would expand to 12,000, he said.
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