Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) yesterday said it has no intention to engage in a price war after Taiwan Star Telecom Corp (台灣之星) recently offered deep discounts to attract 5G subscribers.
Taiwan Star last month rolled out a NT$599 (US$20.16) per month plan for unlimited 5G data services, saying that the package was a 42 percent discount compared with the NT$1,399 other telecoms charge for a similar service.
“When competition heats up, people will come up with various approaches to cope. At the end of the day, they have to calculate if offering lower prices will enable them to keep turning a profit,” Far EasTone president Chee Ching (井琪) said.
Photo courtesy of Far EasTone Telecommunications Co
Taiwan Star and Asia Pacific Telecom Co (亞太電信) are offering cheaper plans to attract subscribers and expand their market shares, but such a strategy would prove futile as companies seek merger-and-acquisition deals to survive, given insufficient bandwidth and network coverage, as well as unsatisfied subscribers, Ching said.
Far EasTone has submitted applications to the National Communications Commission and Fair Trade Commission to merge with Asia Pacific Telecom in a share swap worth about NT$24.7 billion, Far EasTone said.
Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) is seeking to acquire Taiwan Star for NT$28.2 billion.
“I believe the competition will be healthier and normal, since the three existing companies will be of similar size,” Ching said. “For consumers, price is not the only consideration... We will not compete irrationally.”
With the launch of a NT$499 rate plan for unlimited 4G services in 2018, the ensuing price war among local telecoms led to declining revenue for three consecutive years.
Separately, Far EasTone’s shareholders yesterday approved the distribution of a cash dividend of NT$3.25 per share, including a portion from its surplus capital. That represented a payout ratio of 116 percent compared with last year’s earnings per share of NT$2.8.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) share of the global foundry market rose to almost 70 percent last year amid booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI), market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Thursday. The contract chipmaker posted US$122.54 billion in revenue, up 36.1 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 69.9 percent of the global market, TrendForce said. Its share was up from 64.4 percent in 2024, it said. TSMC’s closest rival, Samsung Electronics, was a distant second, posting US$12.63 billion in sales, down 3.9 percent from a year earlier, for a 7.2 percent share of the global market. In the
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
RSS