Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) aims to boost its 5G penetration rate by 10 percentage points to about 35 percent this year, amid demand from government agencies and enterprise clients for high-speed Internet connections and private networks, the company said yesterday.
Chunghwa, the nation’s biggest telecom, had accumulated 2.45 million 5G subscribers as of the end of last year, accounting for about 25 percent of its overall mobile users, data compiled by the National Communications Commission showed.
“We expect 5G subscription to grow at a similar pace as last year,” Chunghwa Telecom chairman Sheih Chi-mau (謝繼茂) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
Chunghwa Telecom said that government agencies and industrial users are the early adopters of 5G networks, followed by individual subscribers, which is starkly different from the uptake of 4G.
It has made good progress in helping enterprise clients build private 5G networks, obtaining 90 percent of the deals among the nation’s large-scale enterprises, it said.
Local telecoms would likely be disciplined on pricing strategy, as it would take longer to break even on 5G services compared with 4G, given the heavy infrastructure deployment and investment, Sheih said.
The companies spent 10 years making 4G services a profitable business, he said.
To stimulate 5G adoption and to satisfy demand for emerging applications, Chunghwa Telecom said it plans to add 1,700 workers this year, with 41 percent of the initial hires focused on artificial intelligence, cloud services, cybersecurity and data services.
To attract and retain talent, it is raising the starting salary for entry-level jobs to NT$40,000 (US$1,324), from about NT$37,000, it said.
Increases in human resource expenses are to eliminate about NT$0.05 from the company’s earnings per share a year, it said.
The company also set a mid-term goal of boosting revenue from three rapidly growing businesses — cloud-based services, cybersecurity and 5G-based artificial intelligence of things — to reach NT$10 billion each by 2025.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
NOT TO WORRY: Some people are concerned funds might continue moving out of the country, but the central bank said financial account outflows are not unusual in Taiwan Taiwan’s outbound investments hit a new high last year due to investments made by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other major manufacturers to boost global expansion, the central bank said on Thursday. The net increase in outbound investments last year reached a record US$21.05 billion, while the net increase in outbound investments by Taiwanese residents reached a record US$31.98 billion, central bank data showed. Chen Fei-wen (陳斐紋), deputy director of the central bank’s Department of Economic Research, said the increase was largely due to TSMC’s efforts to expand production in the US and Japan. Investments by Vanguard International
WARNING SHOT: The US president has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all imported vehicles, and similar or higher duties on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that a trade deal with China was “possible” — a key target in the US leader’s tariffs policy. The US in 2020 had already agreed to “a great trade deal with China” and a new deal was “possible,” Trump said. Trump said he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to visit the US, without giving a timeline for his trip. Trump also said that he was talking to China about TikTok, as the US seeks to broker a sale of the popular app owned by Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動). Trump last week said that he had
STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE: The group is proposing a consortium of investors, with Tesla as the largest backer, and possibly a minority investment by Hon Hai Precision Nissan Motor Co shares jumped after the Financial Times reported that a high-level Japanese group has drawn up plans to seek investment from Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc to aid the struggling automaker. The group believes the electric vehicle (EV) maker is interested in acquiring Nissan’s plants in the US, the newspaper reported, citing people it did not identify. The proposal envisions a consortium of investors, with Tesla as the largest backer, but also includes the possibility of a minority investment by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) to prevent a full takeover by the Apple supplier, the report said. The group is
RSS