The number of mobile phone users in Taiwan has more than doubled since last year: at the end of November Taiwan had roughly 10.3 million users, up from 5 million at the beginning of the year, government statistics show.
According to the Directorate of General Telecommunications under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) (
The penetration rate of mobile phone users in Taiwan jumped from 7 percent in 1997 to 47 percent this year.
Although the DGT declined to reveal the number of subscribers of each mobile phone service operator in order to protect corporate privacy, Pacific Communications Services (
Commencing operations in January 1998, it took Pacific Communications only 11 months to amass its first million users, and 20 months to reach two million in August 1999.
KG Telecommunications (和信1q) also announced in early December that its number of subscribers had reached 1.9 million by the end of November, accounting for 18 percent of the market. The company said it made a NT$400 million profit in the first half of this year and it expects a NT$1 billion profit this year.
Far EasTone Telecommunications Co, Ltd (遠傳1q信) said that the number of its "effective revenue producing customers," excluding the number of users canceling their services and having yet to use their pre-paid mobile phone cards, has now reached 1.72 million. The company said that it doubted the credibility of user numbers released by other mobile phone service providers, claiming that several market research studies done by the company showed that the actual number of mobile phone users in Taiwan has yet to "exceed 10 million."
Far EasTone projects its sales this year to be NT$20 billion, double last year's NT$7.5 billion. The company also said it will start realizing a profit this year. Far Eas-Tone registered a loss of NT$600 million in 1998 but the company registered NT$8.84 billion sales and NT$1.25 billion pre-tax profit for the first half of this year.
TransAsia Telecommunications (泛亞1q信) said it had 50,000 users at the end of November while Mobitai Communications (東信1q) said it had 40,000 subscribers. TransAsia said it registered NT$3.92 billion in revenues from January to September and turned a profit of NT$400 million. The company now hopes for NT$5 billion in revenues and NT$600 million in profit for this year. Mobitai projects its revenues at NT$3.5 billion and profits of NT$200 million.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
RSS