Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom reported Q3 revenue of NT$50.1 billion, down 1.7% compared to a year earlier. Mobile communications business revenue decreased by 2.5% to NT$22.1 billion, while Internet business revenue decreased by 0.1% to NT$5.8 billion. Domestic fixed communications business revenue decreased by 2.6% to NT$17.7 billion. International fixed communications business revenue increased by 4.0% to NT$4.1 billion.
For the first nine months of 2009, total consolidated revenue decreased by 3.0% to NT$147.2 billion.
Dr. Shyue-Ching Lu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Chunghwa Telecom said, "In 2009, and particularly in the third quarter of 2009, we have maintained or increased the subscriber figures in each of our core businesses, including the highly competitive broadband and mobile businesses, despite the challenges presented by the economic environment and market competition. As a result, we have sustained our overall market leadership position in each of our core service areas, and continue to enhance our value-added services, MOD/IPTV offering and key enterprise solutions. Moving forward, we plan to accelerate our fiber deployment and further enrich our MOD/IPTV content in order to continue our growth momentum.
Some additional highlights:
- Total broadband subscribers were 4.31 million as of September 30, 2009, a 0.4% decrease in the number of subscriptions compared to the same period of last year.
- There was a strong growth in FTTx subscriptions, with 165 thousand net additions to bring the total to 1.51 million, compared to 1.34 million FTTx subscribers as of June 30,
2009. - However, ADSL subscribers decreased by 161 thousand to 2.80 million quarter-over-quarter. By the end of September 2009, the number of ADSL and FTTx subscriptions with a service speed of greater than 8 Mbps reached 1.91 million, representing 44.4% of total broadband subscribers, compared to 34.8% at the end of September 2008.
- HiNet subscribers were 4.07 million at the end of September 2009, relatively stable as compared to the end of the second quarter of 2009.
- The increase in HiNet FTTx subscribers was offset by a decrease in HiNet ADSL subscribers of a similar magnitude.
- As of September 30, 2009, Chunghwa had 9.18 million mobile subscribers, slightly up quarter-over-quarter by 1.6% compared to 9.04 million as of June 30, 2009.
- Chunghwa remained the leading mobile operator in Taiwan. According to statistics published by National Communications Commission (NCC), at the end of August 2009, the Company's total subscriber market share (including 2G, 3G and PHS) was 34.5%, while its revenue share was 33.0%.
- Chunghwa had 384 thousand net additions to its 3G subscriber base during the third quarter of 2009, recording a 9.4% rise quarter-over-quarter in the total number of 3G subscribers to 4.49 million as of September 30, 2009.
- Mobile VAS revenue for the first nine months of 2009 was NT$6.18 billion, representing a 18.8% year-over-year increase, of which SMS revenue was up 12.9% and mobile Internet revenue was up 48.1% , respectively, compared to the same period of 2008.
