Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said yesterday it was in talks with Vodafone about joining its handset procurement program and extending cooperation in international roaming services.
Starting next month, the nation’s top telecom operator will provide a discount of about 30 percent to international roaming services for its mobile subscribers and those of Vodafone when they travel to 17 countries in Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand, the two firms announced in Taipei.
The pact makes Chunghwa Telecom Vodafone’s eighth partner in Asia. Vodafone is the world’s biggest mobile operator by revenue.
PHOTO: WANG YI-HUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
“International roaming is only a beginning of our cooperation with Vodaofne. We are looking for the opportunity of purchasing end user products [handsets], or network equipment to reduce cost,” Chunghwa Telecom chairman Lu Shyue-ching (呂學錦) told a media briefing.
“We hope this to be done as soon as possible,” Lu said.
Chunghwa Telecom has 9.2 million mobile users, a 35 percent share of the nation’s mobile market.
“There are a lot of good suppliers in Taiwan and perhaps we can introduce them to our partners,” Lu said in response to a Taipei Times’ question on whether HTC Corp (宏達電) would be on the short list because it is the world’s biggest maker of cellular phones running on Microsoft Corp’s system.
HTC has long been a major mobile phone supplier for both Chunghwa Telecom and Vodafone.
Chunghwa Telecom has set up a special task force, with members from both companies, to review the feasibility of it joining Vodafone’s global procurement program.
Richard Daly, Vodafone’s chief executive for global market cooperation, said that his company was able to bring its partners both buying power and the advantages of its buying operations, which would result in improving pricing and improving profitability.
Vodafone, which has 300 million subscribers, has strong bargaining power because of its huge scale and huge geographic footprint, he said.
He declined, however, to reveal the volume of its annual handset purchases and said there was no timetable for the two firms to deepen their cooperation.
Vodafone has no plan to invest in Chunghwa Telecom, as the company has changed its strategies of aggressive expansion overseas via equity investment, he said.
With the improving economy in Taiwan, Chunghwa Telecom said it planned to increase by about 11 percent its purchase of handsets from 1.8 million this year to 2 million next year.
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