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Home > Communications > Telecommunications > General Telecom
Taiwan Telecommunications Report Q3 2008
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The most recent mobile subscriber figures to be published by Taiwan’s leading operators suggests that the number of mobile customers grew by 0.8% in the first three months of 2008 to reach 24.615mn. Although this represents an extremely slow rate of growth, it is important to remember that Taiwan is already a saturated market in which the operators primarily fight it out for higher value mobile users. In contrast to the sluggish growth for the sector as a whole, the number of 3G customers grew by an estimated 16% in the first three months of 2008 to reach 8.229mn. BMI believes that the sector is on track to achieve 76% growth for 2008, which will raise the number of 3G users to 40% of the total mobile customer base. With 2.588mn 3G customers, Chunghwa Telecom continued to dominate the sector at the end of March 2008.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s telecoms regulator reported that the country had 5.980mn broadband subscribers at the end of 2007, of which DSL was the largest grouping, representing some 4.21mn connections. According to the regulator, the number of ADSL connections grew by 5.3% during 2007, which was actually the technology type which grew the least. The fastest growing broadband technology has been the ‘others’ category, which includes fibre-optic. The number of broadband connections over ‘other’ technologies grew by over 98% during 2007 to reach 1.27mn.
Finally, there were 0.5mn cable and leased line connections at the end of the year, with that figure having grown by 19% during the year. Based on the regulator’s broadband figures, Taiwan had a broadband penetration rate of 26% at the end of 2007. Despite still accounting for 87% of the broadband market at the end of 2007, we anticipate that Chunghwa Telecom will lose market share more rapidly from the end from the end of 2008; this will be due to the commercial launch of services by a number of WiMAX operators. Throughout the first three months of 2008, Taiwan’s WiMAX operators continued to roll out their WiMAX network footprints. In April 2008, four of Taiwan’s licensed WiMAX operators formed the Consortium of Mobile Broadband (CMB), with the aim of facilitating the development of WiMAX in Taiwan. The CMB aims to strengthen co-operation among the WiMAX licensees, including exploring the possibility of sharing base stations.
In addition to raising our forecast for the number of broadband connections at the end of 2008, we now predict stronger broadband growth in both 2009 and 2010. We now predict growth of 18.6% in 2008 and envisage the 30% penetration threshold being crossed by the end of the year. By the end of 2012, we predict a total market of 12.5mn broadband subscribers (nearly 54% penetration).
Although Taiwan’s own scores remain unchanged in our present set of Business Environment Ratings for Asia, movements elsewhere in the table has resulted in Taiwan falling from sixth to seventh place in our table. Taiwan has a relatively weak Telecoms Market score, which reflects the sector’s high mobile penetration rate and the saturated state of its cellular market. However, the country receives a high score for country risk, and one of the highest scores in the region for regulatory independence.
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