TA Index inches up 1.3%

Telecom Asia, Jan, 2005

The TA30 greeted the Christmas holiday with a slight increase of 1.3%. Gainers outnumbered decliners 20 to ten.

Leading the upward move was Hong Kong-based Hutchison Wham poa, rising 13.5% as the group saw its global 3G mobile subscriber base surge by 81% to 5.9 million since mid-August. Hutch said its 3G operations in countries such as Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Sweden and Britain added almost half-a-million subscribers last month alone.

Another strong gainer was South Korea's incumbent carrier KT, which advanced 10.5%, continuing its gains for the fourth consecutive month. The company rose 4.4% in the previous month.

By contrast, rival Dacom slipped to the bottom of the table, hit by news that rival Hanaro Telecom was picked as the preferred bidder for a controlling stake in Thrunet, the country's third largest broadband Internet provider. SK Telecom was also hit hard, ended 3.5% lower, compared to an increase of 12.1% a month earlier.

In Taiwan, Chunghwa Telecom, FarEasTone and Taiwan Cellular all closed higher, rising between 0.9-3.3%. Australia's Telstra and SingTel-owned Optus both gained ground, increasing by 3.2% and 1.6%, respectively.

Meanwhile, companies on the Thai and Japanese markets both closed mixed. Shin Satellite and AIS ended higher, rising 3.5% and 2.6% while Sarnart Telecom closed 3.1% lower.

In Tokyo, NTT DoCoMo rose 1.1% while parent NTT fell 4.8% following a 7.4% increase the previous month. KDDI gained 0.6% on strong mobile subscriber growth backed by its new music download service called "Chaku-uta Full", which allows mobile users to download entire songs to their mobile phones.

     Company            Country   % change

 1   Hutchison          HK        13.5
 2   Korea Telecom      KR        10.5
 3   China Mobile       HK         9.7
 4   Pacific Internet   US         9.4
 5   Shinawatra Sat     TH         3.5
 6   Chunghwa Telecom   TW         3.3
 7   Telstra            AU         3.2
 8   AIS                TH         2.6
 9   China Telecom      HK         2.5
10   SmarTone           HK         2.5
11   China Unicom       HK         1.7
12   SingTel Optus      AU         1.6
13   SingTel            SG         1.3
14   NTT DoCoMo         JP         1.1
15   Telkom Indonesia   ID         1.1
16   FarEastone         TW         1.1
17   Taiwan Cellular    TW         0.9
18   Telekom Malaysia   MY         0.9
19   KDDI               JP         0.6
20   PCCW               HK         0.5
21   Telecom NZ         NZ        -0.3
22   Indosat            ID        -0.9
23   Vodafone           JP        -2.4
24   PLDT               PH        -2.6
25   APT Sat            HK        -2.8
26   Samart Telecom     TH        -3.1
27   SK Telecom         KR        -3.5
28   NTT                JP        -4.8
29   Globe Telecom      PH        -5.6
30   dacom              KR        -6.3