Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s biggest telecom operator, yesterday forecast that net profit this year would contract for a second consecutive year as costs rise, partly due to increased expenses for 4G license amortization.
Net income is to shrink 7.8 percent to NT$36.89 billion (US$1.18 billion) this year, compared with NT$40.03 billion last year, according to a company projection.
Earnings per share are to fall from NT$5.16 last year to NT$4.75 this year.
Operating costs and expenses are expected to rise by 2.8 percent from NT$181.46 billion last year to NT$186.46 billion this year, the company said.
The increase is mainly due to the expansion of information and communications technology (ICT) projects, mobile Internet services, value-added services and sales of smart devices.
Expenses budgeted to expand digital content are to rise, as will 4G license amortization expenses, the company said.
Chunghwa Telecom cited diminished margins brought by new ICT businesses replacing traditional voice services for the expected contraction in net profit.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) are to shrink 3.3 percent to NT$77.91 billion this year, compared with NT$80.53 billion last year, Chunghwa Telecom said.
The EBITDA margin is to fall from 35 percent last year to 33.7 percent this year, the company said.
“Looking at 2017, although we expect to face continued intense competition, we are confident about maintaining our market leadership in all major business lines,” chairman and chief executive Cheng Yu (鄭優) said in a statement.
“For the full year of 2017, we expect total revenue to increase year-on-year,” Cheng said.
The firm sees “great opportunities for our ICT business in 2017 with the growing ubiquity of Internet of Things and aims to boost the sector’s development by capitalizing on our market superiority in integrated network infrastructure, data centers and content delivery network capabilities,” he said.
Revenue is tipped to inch up 0.5 percent to NT$231.16 billion, from last year’s NT$230.01 billion, the company said.
Chunghwa Telecom budgeted NT$30.28 billion for capital expenditure this year, up from NT$23.48 billion last year.
The capital is to be used to enhance fiber broadband network construction and expansion of the firm’s mobile network.
The budget might include an expense originally allocated for a partnership with a global over-the-top service provider, Chunghwa Telecom said last month.
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],”