Asia Pacific Telecom Co (亞太電信) is looking to have 20 percent of its subscribers on 5G by the end of the year to catch up to its peers, it said yesterday.
“Most local telecoms aim to shift 20 percent of their users to 5G this year,” company president Huang Nan-ren (黃南仁) told a media briefing after the company’s extraordinary shareholders’ meeting.
“We have set a very high target internally to match our rivals’ pace. Asia Pacific rolled out 5G services in October last year, lagging behind peers,” Huang said, adding that “it takes time to see an uptake.”
Photo: CNA
By the end of this year, the company plans to have about 400,000 of its 2 million users on 5G.
Since its 5G launch, Asia Pacific, the telecom arm of Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has attracted new subscribers, mostly for 5G, Huang said.
This is different from what the big three telecoms have seen, as most of their 5G users were existing subscribers, he added.
As much as 60 percent of Asia Pacific’s 5G users signed up for packages with monthly fees of NT$999, which has helped lift the company’s average revenue per user, he said.
Asia Pacific offers 5G on bandwidth leased from Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), serving as a mobile virtual network operator. To make sure it can build a stronghold in the market, Asia Pacific is moving to share and cobuild 5G networks with Far EasTone through a strategic partnership.
To boost 5G coverage, Asia Pacific is making a multi-operator core network that it hopes to launch in the third quarter, as soon as regulators approve the 5G sharing project, Asia Pacific chairman Lu Fang-ming (呂芳銘) said.
Company shareholders approved a new offering of 750 million common shares, with 500 million shares designated for Far EasTone through a private placement. Far EasTone would become Asia Pacific’s second-biggest shareholder after obtaining the shares, giving it an 11.58 percent stake.
Far EasTone has deployed 6,000 5G base stations, giving it a coverage rate of 70 percent of its network.
Asia Pacific’s losses widened to NT$5.83 billion (US$207.17 million) last year, compared with losses of NT$5.2 billion in 2019, which it attributed to stiff price competition and heavy equipment depreciation totaling NT$4.28 billion last year.
“Our company has not reached economic scale yet,” Lu said.
Revenue fell at annual rate of 4.63 percent to NT$13.59 billion last year, from NT$14.25 billion in the previous year.
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