French telecom firm Alcatel may be switching its business focus to sell third-generation (3G) network equipment as profits from the fixed-line market dry up, an industry pundit said yesterday.
"For telecom equipment vendors, in the short term, it's easier for them to make a buck from the wireless sector, especially 3G, than from the fixed-line market," said Ann Liang (梁嘉玲), a telecom market analyst at Gartner Dataquest in Taipei. "That's why Alcatel is upbeat on promoting 3G products."
Alcatel already holds significant market share in the fixed-line infrastructure sector. For example, equipment for more than 69 percent of ADSL lines currently in use in Taiwan was made by Alcatel.
In addition, because most fix-line operators have over-invested in equipment in the past few years, this year and next year may be difficult for Alcatel to make money from the fixed-line sector, Liang said.
But with Taiwan finally issuing its five 3G licenses in February, the new money may be in 3G.
"Setting up networks for 3G operators is a new and profitable business opportunity," Liang said.
Before providing high-speed mobile Internet services, 3G companies must purchase equipment, set up base stations and establish transmission networks.
According to Gartner's report released last month, the telecom infrastructure sector is likely to be the last telecom sector to recover from the downturn, with the business environment for vendors such as Alcatel expected to be sluggish through 2004.
To demonstrate its growing commitment to the Taiwan market, Alcatel has invested about US$3 million to build a 3G application center, launched in Taipei last week.
"Our center is the only such [3G testing] center set up in Taiwan that brings high-speed mobile communications to life on a real platform," said Jean-Philippe Benoist, president of Alcatel Taiwan Ltd.
The working 3G model will serve as a marketing tool demonstrating how a 3G network functions to all "potential" partners.
The company plans to show off the center to mobile operators and content providers. One such company, Taiwan 3G Mobile Network Inc (
Meanwhile, Alcatel Taiwan's new chief is optimistic about Taiwan's 3G market potential.
"The nation is poised to become one of the leading telecom countries in Asia Pacific, along with Japan and South Korea," Benoist said.
He explained that, with the number of broadband Internet subscribers and mobile-phone users growing rapidly, demand for mobile Internet services in Taiwan is high.
"I estimate by the end of next year, all 3G licensees will begin to offer services," he said.
Meanwhile, another market watcher said launching service and gaining popularity are two different things.
"The market demand won't really pick up until 2005," said Nathan Lin (林宗賢), a telecom analyst at National Securities Corp (建弘證券). He predicts even if all license holders launch services by next year, the penetration rate of 3G service will still be less than 10 percent by the end of that year.
Lin said currently public demand for mobile data service is still very limited.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
RSS