Taiwan Mobile President on telecom trends

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi interviewed Taiwan Mobile President Jamie Lin at Yahoo Finance Invest Asia on key telecom industry trends. Lin says 5G has driven subscriber growth the past few years and should keep propelling the business as network rollouts continue.

Lin notes a third of Taiwan Mobile (3045.TW) users now employ 5G for nearly half their data, reflecting steady conversion over time even. With 5G more incremental, Lin expects this shift persisting for the next few years until eventual talks of 6G wireless services begin.

In Taiwan, one-third of subscribers use iPhones, loyalists upgrading models every few years regardless of price, Lin says. The remaining users are Android users who switch between brands more and tend to be more price sensitive.

Watch the video above to hear what Lin has to say about how AI could impact the telecom business.

For more on Yahoo Finance Invest Asia click here.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: Welcome to "Yahoo Finance Invest Asia." Of course, many investors around the world look to what's happening in the telecom industry in key emerging markets for really clues on what's hot in technology and what is hot or not in various emerging market economies. Let's bring in Taiwan Mobile President Jamie Lin, because I think he offers just a really great snapshot into a lot of these key trends. Mr. Lin, thank you for joining us.

JAMIE LIN: Thank you, Brian. It's my honor to be here.

BRIAN SOZZI: So talk to us about the state of your business. What are some of the top trends you're seeing right now?

JAMIE LIN: In terms of the telecom industry, of course, 5G is sort of the growth driver for the industry over the past couple of years. And it's looking to continue to provide tailwind for the industry over the next at least two to three years. In terms of our e-commerce business, our mobile business, post-pandemic, people's purchasing behavior has been changing. So we're sort of transforming our business to stay ahead of the game.

In terms of the accelerator business efforts that we're running, ever since sort of the global macro market step into this sort of bear market cycle, we're seeing less wildcard tourists founders and more founders are determined to build the next generation impactful big companies. So those are the trends that we're seeing in the market right now.

BRIAN SOZZI: I absolutely want to dive deep into the startup comments you just mentioned, because I know that is a topic very near and dear to your heart. But on the telecom side, in terms of 5G, where is your company at in terms of that rollout of 5G? And what is next? As a leader of your company, is there 6G? What does 6G even look like?

JAMIE LIN: So 5G, we have since rolled out the service nationwide. So the coverage is more than 90% at this point. Conversion is around 1/3. So 1/3 of all of our subscribers are now using 5G. When they're using 5G, they're sort of using 5G for close to 50% of their data usage. So 5G is really not unlike a 4G, which is everybody came on to the technology within a matter of a few years. We see 5G more as a steady conversion over time. So that's why I said, we're expecting this trend to continue at least for another two to three years.

In terms of 6G, right now I think it's very early-- still very early in the game. The industry as a whole is still defining what 6G really is. Some say it is satellite, some say it is faster land-based base stations. I think it's still up in the air. So I think it will take another two to three years before all of us together decide what 6G really is.

BRIAN SOZZI: Is the iPhone, the Apple iPhone, is that still the dominant phone where you play? And what are the phones do you see consumers gravitating towards? And is it just a price-driven market at this point?

JAMIE LIN: So in Taiwan, there's essentially two markets, right. So iPhone occupies around 1/3 of the market. And for those consumers, they're that loyal to iPhone. So sort of every few years, they would upgrade to a newer version of the iPhone. And the churn rate from iPhone to other operating system is super low, single digit. The rest of the market, the rest 2/3 of the market is Android users. And they S switch back and forth between different Android brands.

So for the iPhone users, they really don't care about the prices. Whereas, the Android users, you do have segments. So you do have people who are looking for a better deal. And you do have people who are going for the Samsung, the Pixel of the world. That is more premium priced.

BRIAN SOZZI: With the new iPhone-- an iPhone sitting in the market, Jamie, have you been pleased with the consumer response so far?

JAMIE LIN: It's been doing very well for us. So we're seeing 20% y-o-y growth. So far after the iPhone 15 launch.

BRIAN SOZZI: Wow. That's pretty big. I think US investors see the economy in Taiwan, it's still growing, but it has slowed. How has that impacted your business?

JAMIE LIN: So in terms of telecom, I think it's still must-have, right? So at the end of the day, people still pay their telecom bills. Our 5G all-you-can-eat rate plan is around $40 USD per month. So it's cheap enough for most people to afford. So right now, I think price is still not a huge factor in terms of considering if they want to use the 5G service or not. It's more if they need that type of data service

In terms of our e-commerce business, mobile business, like I said, post-pandemic, people's purchasing behavior is changing. So we are implementing transformation strategies to stay ahead of the game.

BRIAN SOZZI: Do you see AI transforming the telecom industry? And if so, how?

JAMIE LIN: Right now, I think AI has a lot of applications in telecom and in most of other industries that we're observing. So most impactful applications would be in customer service, internal sort of knowledge management, and so far and so on. In terms of greatly transforming the telecom business, I think we're-- sort of based on our observation, maybe some decentralized type of business model based on blockchain or based on Web3 might be something that would truly transforming telecom instead of AI.

BRIAN SOZZI: Do you have to set up a new safeguards and new technology to protect consumers?

JAMIE LIN: Oh, yeah. So when you're implementing AI, we all know that it's-- the biggest problem right now has all of these hallucination problems, right. So yes, so when you're implementing AI, you have to fine tune it, you have to put on a lot of guardrails to make sure that, especially when it comes to consumer-facing applications, you have to put on a lot of guardrails to make sure that it doesn't say things that goes against your core beliefs.

But we're also hopeful, because, if you look at the newest version of Bart, which is Google's large language model, now it has the ability to cross-checking with Google Search, meaning that it can actually through working with Google Search, double-checking if what is saying is right or not. Right now, it takes a few clicks for you to fact-check it. But I think pretty soon, Google is going to make the process automated. So we're actually hopeful the hallucination problem might be solved in the next 6 to 12 months.

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