Media veteran Cheng Yu (鄭優) was yesterday formally elected as chairman of Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) as part of the government’s efforts to help the state-controlled telecommunications operator find new revenue sources.
The government’s choice of Cheng, which was disclosed on Thursday last week, is aimed at injecting new impetus into the 20-year-old company and accelerating its integration with the information technology, consumer electronics and entertainment sectors, the company said in a statement.
“Chunghwa Telecom will be able to leverage Cheng’s expertise and experience in the digital media sector and speed up the company’s development in digital convergence,” it said.
The board of directors held an extraordinary meeting to elect Cheng as chairman, replacing Rick Tsai (蔡力行), who has reached the mandatory retirement age of 65.
A handover ceremony is to be held today.
Cheng, 63, is a former president of Taiwan Television Enterprise Ltd (臺視), chairman of Radio Taiwan International (央廣) and editor-in-chief of the Chinese-language Commercial Times.
“It is difficult to make an elephant dance. Chunghwa Telecom is the nation’s biggest telecom company with diverse businesses from landlines and mobiles to Internet TV. It will take a major effort to grow from the integration of those businesses,” Doong I-chun (董奕君), who tracks the telecom industry with Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute (MIC, 產業情報研究所), said in a telephone interview.
“With Cheng’s extensive experience in the media sector, he will be able to come up with innovative ideas for Chunghwa Telecom to offer digital content,” Doong said.
As the nation’s 4G penetration rate hit 60 percent this year, telecoms are facing big challenges to maintain their growth momentum, Doong said.
Chunghwa Telecom had 6.23 million 4G subscribers as of Sept. 30, accounting for 57 percent of its total mobile subscribers.
Rivals such as Asia Pacific Telecom Co (亞太電信) and Far EasTone Telecommunication Co Ltd (遠傳電信) have taken more aggressive steps to create new revenue sources through price wars or offering new services, leaving Chunghwa Telecom looking slow on the uptake, which could hurt its net profit next year, an industry source said.
Given his open-mindedness, Cheng could be the right choice to help the company enter a new growth era, the source said.
Chunghwa Telecom’s net profit is forecast to contract 6.6 percent to NT$39.98 billion (US$1.25 billion) this year, the company forecast. It hit a four-year high last year of NT$42.82 billion.
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