Taipei, Nov. 18, 2008 (CENS)--After nearly half a year of negotiations with Apple Inc., Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., Taiwan`s No.1 telecom carrier, finally outdid its local rivals to win the exclusive franchise to sell Apple iPhone, the company announced recently.

Although Taiwan Mobile Corp. and Far EasTone Co., Ltd. had also been aggressively competing for the dealership, Chunghwa stood out in the long run for its largest number of retail stores around the island, according to people familiar with the talks. The telecom service provider now operates 300 in-house stores and 200 contact shops.

Chunghwa is likely to begin selling the feature-laden 3G phones in December and insiders expect the company to sell the phones in the form of offering free phones accompanied by expensive charge rates, a model currently adopted by Hong Kong telecom service providers, which charge iPhone subscribers HK$498 (US$64 at US$1:NT$7.7) in monthly rate.

Chunghwa`s executives estimate the phones to lure non-Chunghwa service subscribers away from their current service providers in light of the evidences involving international service providers. They said subscribers defecting pervious service providers to iPhone service providers with their original phone numbers account for 50% of switching subscribers worldwide.

Chunghwa and Apple have kept their cooperation terms undisclosed. Some insiders estimated the two companies would split on the revenue from connections on iPhones. However, Chunghwa`s executives stressed that revenue split was the rule for 2G cooperation and cooperation on 3G service is free from the rule.

In 2G cooperation, Apple usually asked service providers selling its 2G iPhones to pay it 30% of the revenue from the connections on the phones.

Chunghwa is also planning to introduce Google`s GPhone into Taiwan.

Taiwan`s telecom insiders pointed out that these much-talked phones are very marketable. Apple shipped 6.9 million iPhones in the third quarter, far more than the 1.1 million phones it shipped a year ago and more than forecast five million systems. So far, Apple has shipped 10 million iPhones worldwide, a goal achieved three months earlier than expected.

(by Ken Liu)