Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) is looking to expand its enterprise services as intensifying competition weighs on its mobile earnings.
While analysts and investors have voiced concerns about a possible price war between Chunghwa and its rivals, the company said that steeply discounted promotions, such as the NT$499 monthly unlimited data plan, have proven effective in solidifying its mobile subscriber base.
Since the launch of the plan in April and May, the company has attracted about 1.5 million subscribers to turn its net mobile subscriber numbers toward a positive trajectory, Chunghwa Telecom president Sheih Chi-mau (謝繼茂) told an investors’ teleconference yesterday.
Despite the surge in new subscribers, the company has been recognized as Taiwan’s fastest mobile network in terms of 4G download speeds by Ookla Speedtest and OpenSignal, Sheih said.
As of the end of May, the company saw subscribers increase 1.06 percent to 10.52 million from 10.41 million at the end of the first quarter, reversing a downtrend.
Steep discounts on 4G unlimited plans are required to defend against similar moves by competitors and the company would strive to include more bundled sales for high-tier subscribers, Sheih added.
The company’s revenue this quarter could fall short of its guidance before growth resumes in the final quarter of this year, Sheih said, pinning his hopes on upcoming iPhone launches.
Regarding enterprise services, Sheih said that the company in the past quarter unveiled a tariff scheme for narrowband Internet of Things (IoT) for businesses, while its Internet data center in Taipei’s Banciao District (板橋) has reported a 70 percent occupancy rate for rack servers as well as rising profit contribution from each rack.
However, the company said that it has run into delays in recognizing revenue from some of its information technology infrastructure projects and that the effects would carry over to this quarter.
Going forward, the company would continue to leverage its competitive advantages to offer comprehensive and customized information technology services, such as information security, public key infrastructure and smart cities, while venturing into artificial intelligence and blockchain to broaden its revenue streams, it said.
While mobile revenue in the past quarter dipped 4.1 percent annually to NT$25.68 billion (US$839 million), Chunghwa’s multimedia-on-demand service grew 32.5 percent annually to NT$820 million, driven by ELTA TV’s exclusive broadcasts of this year’s FIFA World Cup.
The company reported that net income in the second quarter fell 5.6 percent annually to NT$9.86 billion, with consolidated revenue falling 3.6 percent annually to NT$53.66 billion. Earnings per share were NT$1.27.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to