Third-generation telecom operator Vibo Telecom Inc (威寶電信) will seek to increase revenue by 66 percent this year, helped by a spike in its subscriber base forecast after a new low-tariff package gained popularity amid the economic slowdown, a company executive said yesterday.
The projected revenue growth was in stark contrast to a conservative outlook provided by Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s top wireless carrier, which said holding steady revenue this year would be an uphill battle after the economic downturn began taking a toll on phone usage in the last quarter of last year.
Vibo is seeking to expand its revenues to NT$10 billion (US$287.4 million) this year from NT$6 billion last year, chief executive Chang Feng-hsiung (張豐雄) told a press conference yesterday.
“It will not be a challenge for us as long as we are adding new customers every day,” Chang said.
A growing number of local mobile users, especially college students, have been seeking telecom services at bargain prices amid the economic crisis, which is reflected in the popularity of a new low-price package launched late last year, Chang said.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Vibo introduced a new service allowing users to make free voice calls to other Vibo users for a monthly fee of as little as NT$300.
By the end of this year, Vibo hopes to expand its customer base to 1.5 million users from 850,000 last year, Chang said.
With rapid growth in subscribers and revenues, Vibo has a good chance of recording its first profit next year, Chang said.
Vibo lost NT$5 billion last year and hopes losses this year will be down to about NT$3 billion, he said.
Regarding the company’s capital spending, Chang said Vibo would remain flexible to match the nation’s economic situation. It could cap spending at about NT$2.4 billion this year, Chang said.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
RSS