Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s largest telecom services provider by revenue, and Apple Inc plan to jointly launch the third-generation Apple iPhone in Taiwan before the end of the year, the Taiwanese firm said yesterday.
The company “has signed a contract with Apple and will provide third-generation [3G] iPhone services in Taiwan before the end of the year,” Chunghwa Telecom said in a statement.
A Chunghwa Telecom official said Taiwan would be among the third wave of countries to launch the iPhone 3G since Apple first released the device on July 11 in 22 countries.
The company has yet to set service charges for the operation of the iPhone 3G, said the official, who asked not to be named.
EXTENDING ITS LEAD
Chunghwa Telecom, competing against Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and Far Eastone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), will be the first operator in Taiwan to offer the phone in a bid to extend its lead over competitors.
The iPhone may help Taipei-based Chunghwa Telecom increase sales from wireless Web, e-mail and messaging beyond the 9.9 percent of mobile-services revenue it posted in September.
The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday that Apple granted Chunghwa Telecom the exclusive right to sell iPhones because of the Taiwanese firm’s large sales channel.
As the iPhone is very attractive to most mobile users, its introduction will not only gain attention from people who adore Apple gadgets, but also act to move subscribers from other telecom operators to Chunghwa Telecom, made possible by the number portability service, the newspaper said.
Number portability refers to a service that allows mobile subscribers to use their previous cellphone numbers when they change operators.
BIG MARKET
Taiwan has one of the world’s highest cellphone usage rates at 102.5 subscriptions for every 100 citizens, Chunghwa Telecom said.
The company had 8.9 million cellphone subscribers at the end of September and gets around 40 percent of revenue from its wireless business.
The iPhone 3G became the most popular handset among US consumers last quarter, passing Motorola Inc’s Razr, research firm NPD Group said on Monday.
The new version of the iPhone operates on so-called 3G networks, which are much faster for data downloads and Internet surfing than the Edge networks used by the original iPhone, released last year. Available in more than 50 countries, the new version also features a GPS location device.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS