Taiwan records world's highest cell phone penetration rate of 106%

Dec 02, 2003 Ι Industry In-Focus Ι Electronics and Computers Ι By Ben, CENS
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Taipei, Dec. 2, 2003 (CENS)--With the deregulation of the local telecommunications market, Taiwan is seeing a rapid upgrading in telecom competitiveness, recording the world's highest cell phone penetration rate of 106.45% last year, according to a competitiveness analytical report issued by the Directorate General of Telecommunications (DGT) under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC).

Results of the analysis, which is conducted by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, also show Taiwan ranked fourth worldwide with a 9.4% broadband subscriber penetration rate last year, only behind South Korea's 21.3%, Hong Kong's 14.9%, and Canada's 11.2%. In terms of the overall telecom competitiveness, Taiwan ranked sixth in 2002, advancing eight spots from the preceding year.

Last year, the MOTC began carrying out a six-year plan on comparing the telecom competitiveness of Taiwan with those of OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) member nations including Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China.

Taiwan ranked second in the world in terms of government attention to the development of the information and telecom technologies, and ranked third in the success in carrying out the governmental policies on promoting such technologies.

In the meantime, the International Telecommunications Union released a survey result on Nov. 19 in Geneva, showing Taiwan ranked third in the Asia-Pacific region and ninth worldwide in respect of digitalization popularity rate. In the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan was only behind South Korea and Hong Kong.

DGT said Asia's "four little dragons", including Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea, enjoyed a marvelous growth in the information technology and telecom sectors between 1998 and 2002. During this period, South Korea advanced 20 spots to rank fourth the world over and Taiwan jumped 22 notches to rank ninth, in the growth of the information technology and telecom sectors.
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