Taiwan Next Generation Mobile Services
With its strong focus on the role of technology in its economy, it is not surprising that Taiwan has one of the most advanced telecommunications networks in Asia, including next generation mobile services. Most high profile in this regard has been the remarkably booming mobile sector. Having moved past 100% subscriber penetration in early 2002, the mobile market peaked at around 116% in 2003. Then followed a year of market rationalisation and by early 2005 mobile subscriber numbers had dropped back to 21.3 million or a penetration of 94%.
The Taiwan telecom market seems to simply find new ways to grow, however, and the country has been energetically moving into next generation mobile services. Following the awarding of 5 licences for Third Generation (3G) services in 2002, one of the new licensees, APBW, launched its cdma2000 1xRTT service in mid-2003. The new operator claimed 550,000 subscribers by early 2005, having expanded at an annual rate of almost 200% in 2004. The other operators granted 3G licences had announced plans to launch new services in 2005.
The broadband market in Taiwan is also one of the more heavily penetrated in the world. With around 90% of households having some form of Internet access, about 55% of these have access to the Internet provided by some form of broadband. With DSL as the dominant platform the broadband market was still expanding at an annual rate of 15% coming into 2005.
The role of the government in creating a liberalised telecom market in Taiwan should not be underestimated. First there was the strong push for competition to incumbent Chunghwa Telecom and to generally make the market more accessible to new operators. More recently the focus has been on achieving the privatisation of the incumbent and, although there were a number of political issues yet to be resolved before the proposed sale of a further 17% stake, this looked like happening in 2005.
Paul Budde - Managing Director, Paul Budde Communication
Published by Totel www.totel.com.au
Date: July 8, 2005
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