SINGAPORE-The once sleepy telecommunications market in technology-centric Taiwan is finally stirring from its slumber.
Having taken a back seat to the country’s more well-known semiconductor industry until now, Taiwan’s mobile-phone industry has now become one of the fastest-growing sectors in Taiwan, if not all of Asia.
The four cellular operators have signed on 15.13 million subscribers out of a population of 22 million.
In fact, analysts said the number of mobile-phone units in use could in fact be higher than the 69-percent wireless penetration rate suggests, because it has become fashionable for people to own two or more mobile phones.
Carl Berrisford, a telecommunications analyst at Indosuez W.I. Carr Securities in Taiwan, was recently quoted as saying there would be as many as 16.5 million mobile-phone customers on the island by year-end.
“A combination of demographics and earning power” is pushing more people in Taiwan to have at least one mobile phone, he said in a recent Bloomberg report.
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter recently described the Taiwan phone market as being poised for “a better future.” It said Taiwan, with its emphasis on high-tech development, promoted a technologically sophisticated culture.
“We think that this, together with a fairly even distribution of wealth across the population, provides an ideal environment for the growth of cellular and Internet services,” the company said in a country report dated 3 October, 2000.
The Taiwanese telecommunications market was one of the last developed markets in Asia to be liberalized.
Chunghwa Telecom, which has been monopolizing the industry for more than 40 years, lost its exclusive license in 1997, when the market was thrown open to cellular service providers. Since then, six private wireless carriers have sprung up and slashed Chunghwa’s market share from 100 percent to 45 percent. The country’s mobile market increased from 1.5 million users to 10 million subscribers in the first two years following liberalization, a fivefold increase from 1997 to 1999.
Of the six, four-Far EasTone, Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Cellular and KG Telecommunications-have licenses to provide nationwide services. Mobitai has a license to provide mobile services for central Taiwan, while TransAsia has a license to deliver services to southern Taiwan. The biggest cellular operator today is Taiwan Cellular, which commands a 30-percent market share. It had 4.56 million customers as of the end of July, compared with Chunghwa’s 4 million.
In fact, the telecommunications industry in Taiwan is doing so well the government is considering awarding additional CDMA licenses to cellular operators. Chunghwa Telecom is planning to launch its CDMA service in July 2001 and plans eventually to use a 114 kilobits per second (kbps) system.
Taiwan has yet to announce its 3G licensing plans.
