Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) yesterday said it aims to add 1 million 4G users to its customer base this year to stave of the threat of revenue stagnation amid intensifying market competition.
That would bring the nation’s No. 3 telecom operator’s total number of 4G subscribers to 5.5 million.
The company’s 4.5 million 4G users as of the end of last year made up 62 percent of its mobile service subscribers.
Far EastTone forecast the nation’s 4G penetration rate this year would climb to between 70 percent and 75 percent of mobile users from last year’s 60 percent.
Far EasTone said that profits from its 4G service helped it raise its average revenue per user from NT$896 per month in 2015 to NT$901 per month in the third quarter of last year.
“The telecom industry is reaching a plateau in terms of revenue. It is very challenging. Market competition is very fierce,” Far EastTone president Yvonne Li (李彬) said yesterday. “Growth will come from new services such as digital services, or providing information and communication technology services for corporate clients.”
Commenting on the company’s plans to end the minimum payment of NT$689 per month for unlimited 4G services on Feb. 1, Li said “market competition is an important consideration.”
Due to fierce competition, Taiwan’s five telecoms operators decided to extend flat rates for 4G services — common during the 3G era — even though unlimited-rate plans are inhibiting their profits. All players including the nation’s biggest phone company Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) are hesitant about scrapping flat rate plans.
“We believe offering tiered charges based on usage it is a long-term trend,” Li said.
Last year, Far EasTone posted NT$94.34 billion (US$2.95 billion) in revenue, down 3.03 percent from 2015’s NT$97.29 billion, according to company figures.
Net income last year dropped slightly to NT$11.41 billion, or NT$3.5 per share, compared with NT$11.49 billion, or earnings of NT$3.52 per share, in 2015.
Last year’s earnings per share beat the company’s forecast of NT$3.4 per share.
Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation’s No. 2 telecom company, yesterday said net income dropped to NT$15.32 billion last year, from NT$15.69 billion in 2015. Earnings per share fell to NT$5.63 last year from NT$5.76 the previous year.
The company’s revenue last year inched up 0.44 percent to NT$116.65 billion from 2015’s NT$116.14 billion.
Chunghwa Telecom yesterday said net income contracted 6.5 percent annually to NT$40.03 billion last year from NT$42.81 billion in 2015, while earnings per share fell to NT$5.16 from NT$5.52.
Revenue shrank 0.8 percent year-on-year to NT$230 billion last year from 2015’s NT$231.8 billion, the firm said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”