Chunghwa Telecom announced its unaudited consolidated operating results for January 2023. In January, the unaudited consolidated revenue increased by 2.0% year over year to NT$ 17.76 billion. Operating income increased by 4.4% year over year to NT$ 4.15 billion and income before tax was NT$ 4.12 billion. Net income attributable to stockholders of the parent company was NT$ 3.26 billion and EBITDA increased by 3.2% year over year to NT$ 7.44 billion, while EPS increased by NT$ 0.01 year over year to NT$0.42.

Mr. Chi-Mau Sheih, Chairman and CEO of Chunghwa Telecom, concluded, “We were pleased to see our outstanding performance at the beginning of year 2023. Our three customer-centric business groups all reported year-over-year revenue growth in January to maintain our growth momentum and market leadership.”

In January, our overall revenue and profit increased year over year driven by the strong core business and ICT business. Mobile service revenue maintained its upward trend with a 6.3% year-over-year growth and reached a 22-month consecutive growth, mainly due to the increasing subscriber number of 5G service and postpaid SIMs, as well as the solid growth of mobile data business including international roaming business. In addition, mobile post-paid ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) increased by 3.7% year over year with a 22-month consecutive growth trend.

For fixed broadband business, international leased line revenue reached a double-digit growth year over year owing to the increasing demand for international submarine cable services. In addition, both domestic broadband access revenue and data communications revenue continued to increase as well, reflecting our high-speed promotion package (速在有禮) newly launched this year successfully incentivized subscribers to adopt higher speed and Wi-Fi services, which further enhanced our fixed-broadband ARPU to increase by 1.2% year-over-year, achieving a 25-month consecutive growth since 2021.

ICT business revenue increased significantly due to the double-digit growth on revenues of enterprise applications, including IDC, cloud, cybersecurity, AIoT and ICT projects. In particular, IDC, cloud, and cybersecurity delivered the strongest growth momentum.

As of January 2023, the unaudited accumulated consolidated revenue, operating income, income before tax, and EPS all exceeded guidance largely.

Chunghwa Telecom was included in the top 5% of S&P Global ESG Score in the Sustainability Yearbook 2023 and highlighted as one of the best-performing company among over 7,800 companies evaluated, showing our global industry leading position. The Company actively promoted the sustainable development vision of "green low-carbon, digital empowerment, integrity and transparency", delivering best sustainable practices in industry.

In addition, Chunghwa Telecom continues to provide best customer-centric user experience. As the international institute Opensignal awarded us the fastest 5G service provider in December 2022, we continued to be acknowledged by SPEEDTEST® as the triple-crown for fastest 5G network, best mobile coverage, and best mobile/5G network, recognizing the our efforts of creating high speed 5G service and high-quality mobile network.

 

                                                                                                 (in NT$ billion)

	January, 2023	January, 2022	YoY%
Revenue	17.76	17.42	2.0
Operating costs and expenses	13.61	13.44	1.3
Other income and expense (Note 1)	0.00	0.00	-
Operating income	4.15	3.98	4.4
Income before tax	4.12	4.07	1.2
Net income attributable to stockholders of the parent	3.26	3.16	3.3
EBITDA	7.44	7.20	3.2
EPS(NT$)	0.42	0.41	3.3

Note 1: "Other income and expenses" includes gains (losses) on disposal of property, plant and equipment (PP&E) and investment property, and impairment loss on PP&E and investment property.

Note 2: The calculation of growth rates is based on NT$ thousand.

Financial Statements

Financial statements and additional operational data can be found on the Company’s website at http://www.cht.com.tw/en/home/cht/investors/financials/quarterly-earnings

 

NOTE CONCERNING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements constitute “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates” and similar statements. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Chunghwa’s beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Investors are cautioned that actual events and results could differ materially from those statements as a result of a number of factors including, but not limited to the risks outlined in Chunghwa’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Forms F-1, F-3, 6-K and 20-F, in each case as amended. The forward-looking statements in this press release reflect the current belief of Chunghwa as of the date of this press release and Chunghwa undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements for events or circumstances that occur subsequent to such date, except as required under applicable law.

 

This press release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States. Securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration. Any public offering of securities to be made in the United States will be made by means of a prospectus that may be obtained from the issuer or selling security holder and that will contain detailed information about the company and management, as well as financial statements.

 

NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

To supplement the Company’s consolidated financial statements presented in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards pursuant to the requirements of the Financial Supervisory Commission, or T-IFRSs, Chunghwa Telecom also provides EBITDA, which is a "non-GAAP financial measure”.  EBITDA is defined as consolidated net income (loss) excluding (i) depreciation and amortization, (ii) total net comprehensive financing cost (which is comprised of net interest expense, exchange gain or loss, monetary position gain or loss and other financing costs and derivative transactions), (iii) other income, net, (iv) income tax, (v) (income) loss from discontinued operations.

 

In managing the Company’s business, Chunghwa Telecom relies on EBITDA as a means of assessing its operating performance because it excludes the effect of (i) depreciation and amortization, which represents a non-cash charge to earnings, (ii) certain financing costs, which are significantly affected by external factors, including interest rates, foreign currency exchange rates and inflation rates, which have little or no bearing on our operating performance, (iii) income tax (iv) other expenses or income not related to the operation of the business. 

 

CAUTIONS ON USE OF NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

In addition to the consolidated financial results prepared under T-IFRSs, Chunghwa Telecom also provide non-GAAP financial measures, including “EBITDA”. The Company believes that the non-GAAP financial measures provide investors with another method for assessing its operating results in a manner that is focused on the performance of its ongoing operations.

 

Chunghwa Telecom’s management believes investors will benefit from greater transparency in referring to these non-GAAP financial measures when assessing the Company’s operating results, as well as when forecasting and analyzing future periods. However, the Company recognizes that:

• these non-GAAP financial measures are limited in their usefulness and should be considered only as a supplement to the Company’s T-IFRSs financial measures;
• these non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, the Company’s T-IFRSs financial measures;
• these non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered to be superior to the Company’s T-IFRSs financial measures; and
• these non-GAAP financial measures were not prepared in accordance with T-IFRSs and investors should not assume that the non-GAAP financial measures presented in this earnings release were prepared under a comprehensive set of rules or principle.

Further, these non-GAAP financial measures may be unique to Chunghwa Telecom, as they may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. As such, this presentation of non-GAAP financial measures may not enhance the comparability of the Company’s results to the results of other companies. Readers are cautioned not to view non-GAAP results as a substitute for results under T-IFRSs, or as being comparable to results reported or forecasted by other companies.

 

About Chunghwa Telecom

Chunghwa Telecom (TAIEX 2412, NYSE: CHT) (“Chunghwa” or “the Company”) is Taiwan’s largest integrated telecommunications services company that provides fixed-line, mobile, broadband, and internet services. The Company also provides information and communication technology services to corporate customers with its big data, information security, cloud computing and IDC capabilities, and is expanding its business into innovative technology services such as IoT, AI, etc. Chunghwa has been actively and continuously implemented environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives with the goal to achieve sustainability and has won numerous international and domestic awards and recognitions for its ESG commitments and best practices. For more information, please visit our website at www.cht.com.tw