Chunghwa Telecom Co's (
"We believe the expansion of the mobile customer-base has helped boost the use of value-added services. And we expect sales from this area will take off in the future," Chunghwa Telecom Chairman Hochen Tan (
Sales from value-added services -- including data messaging, picture transmission, ring tone and game downloads -- rose to about NT$1.67 billion during the January to September period for the year, accounting for only 1.24 percent of the company's sales of NT$133.9 billion during the same period.
The value-added services contributed merely 0.009 percent to the phone company's sales in calender year 2002.
During the first nine months the telecom giant earned NT$36.4 billion, or after-tax earnings per share of NT$3.77.
The profits accounted for 84 percent of its forecast NT$42.84 billion for this year. Chunghwa Telecom profited NT$4.0 a share last year.
"Value-added services are definitely a primary driving force for local mobile phone operators, as demand in data transmission is gathering steam," said Justin Lin (
The opinion of George Wu (
"I don't expect a boom to come soon for data masseging or value-added services since there's bumpy way to go before the realization of 3G service," Wu said.
The company's mobile subscribers exceeded 8 million users this month, closely tracking behind Taiwan Cellular Corp's (
Subscription for the company's ADSL service also exceeded 2.4 million people as of this month, and the figure is expected to grow to 2.5 million by the end of the year, company president Lu Shyue-ching (
Lu attributed the increase partly to the growth in the number of ADSL subscribers.
Sales generated from ADSL services reached NT$15.45 billion during the first nine months, accounted for 11.5 percent of the telecom operator's revenue.
Currently, more than 500,000 users have signed up with the company's ADSL service, he added.
Apart from its core business, Chunghwa is also branching into the offering of multimedia-on-demand (MOD) service, aiming to boost its bottom line.
Chunghwa Telecom is attempting to provide such new services in the near future after problems with rates and cooperation with cable operators to supply programs, Hochen said.
"With MOD service at hand, our customers will be able to choose what movies they want to see just as if they walked into a video-rental store," Chunghwa Telecom senior vice president Chang Feng-hsiung (
This is very different from the service existing cable operators provide," Chang said.
Chunghwa Telecom is scheduled to test the MOD service equipment as early as December, he said without elaborating.
Chunghwa shares closed unchanged at NT$51.5 on the TAIEX yesterday.
The company's shares have surged 7.5 percent this month.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS