Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd (遠傳電信), the nation’s No. 3 telecoms operator, is planning to expand its wireless hotspot network to nearly 3,000 Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店) outlets by the end of this year.
This would bring the number of hotspots operated by Far EasTone to a total of 25,000 by the end of the year, Far EasTone said yesterday.
“Smartphone users can be offered more Wi-Fi bandwidth amid the high density of Taiwan’s convenience stores,” Far Eastone president Yvonne Li (李彬) said in a press release.
FamilyMart, the nation’s second-largest convenience-store chain, has so far set up wireless hotspots at 1,400 of its outlets, the company’s data showed.
Meanwhile, the nation’s top telecoms operator, Chung-hwa Telecom Co (中華電信), has joined forces with a Chinese phone services provider in the development of mobile applications.
Chunghwa Telecom said yesterday its app store, Hami Apps, has posted more than 100 of its apps in China Unicom Ltd’s (中國聯通) app store, WoStore, to attract potential users, while WoStore has placed about 200 of its apps on the Hami Apps platform to broaden its services.
Chunghwa Telecom also said the number of users of Hami Apps is rising by 15 percent per month and now totals 250,000.
With its number of mobile phone subscribers on the rise and smartphones run on the Android operating system gaining popularity, the company expects Hami Apps to have 500,000 users by the end of this year.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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