Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation’s second-largest telecom, yesterday said it would acquire Taiwan Star Telecom Corp (台灣之星), the nation’s fourth-largest carrier, as the company aims to expand its customer base, and boost efficiency and competitiveness in the local market.
Taiwan Mobile aims to enlarge its spectrum of resources for greater economies of scale, the telecom said.
It also looks to achieve earnings and net-worth growth, as well as better customer satisfaction, the company said.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan Mobile, which had 7.11 million users as of the end of September, and Taiwan Star, which had 2.65 million users, would have a combined customer base of 9.76 million, the companies told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
That would be higher than the 9.12 million users Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) and Asia Pacific Telecom Co (亞太電信) have through a business partnership, the firms said.
Its combined customer base would come close to the 10.65 million users of Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s largest telecom, they said.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan Mobile said it is planning to issue 282.222 million new common shares that would be given to Taiwan Star shareholders in exchange for their shares.
The exchange ratio would be one Taiwan Star share for 0.04508 of its own shares, Taiwan Mobile said, adding that its calculations were based on Taiwan Star’s stock price as of June 30, expected merger synergies and comparable companies’ price-to-book ratios.
Taiwan Star would be dissolved after the merger, the companies said.
The deal is subject to approvals from a Taiwan Star shareholders’ meeting and regulatory authorities, they said.
The firms aim to complete the deal by Sept. 30 next year, but no later than Dec. 31, with the option of extensions if both parties agree, they said.
With the addition of Taiwan Star’s 5G licenses, Taiwan Mobile would own 100 megahertz of the 3.5 gigahertz frequency band, which would help speed up its promotion of 5G services to corporate clients, Taiwan Mobile president Jamie Lin (林之晨) said.
After the merger, Taiwan Mobile would terminate its 3G network and thousands of 4G base stations to avoid overlapping resources, which would help save significant amounts of energy, Lin said.
Taiwan Mobile would respect all contracts customers signed with Taiwan Star and hopes to gain support from regulators, he said.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
RSS