Taiwan Mobile aims to boost its 4G connections from 1.1 million to three million by the end of the year.

At the end of 2014, Taiwan Mobile and Chunghwa led with almost one million 4G connections each, followed by Far EasTone with 958,000, according to GSMA Intelligence. The three launched 4G services in late May 2014.

Taiwan Mobile has almost a 23 per cent share of total market connections – neck-and-neck with rival Far EasTone. Chunghwa Telecom is the market leader with a 33 per cent share.

Taiwan Mobile said 4G ARPU is 12 per cent higher than 3G ARPU. It plans to roll out about 16,000 4G base stations to cover 99 per cent of the population by the end of the year. The company announced it November that it added TWD515 million ($16.9 million) to its 2014 capex budget, which was TWD16 billion, in part to speed up its 4G network rollout.

Its net profit for 2014 fell 4 per cent to TWD15 billion ($476 million) while its revenue rose 4 per cent to TWD112.6 billion. Its EBITDA was up 1 per cent, and its EBITDA margin was 27.79 per cent.

Non-voice revenue increased 25 per cent, while mobile service revenue was up just 0.5 per cent last year.

For this year, the operator is forecasting an 11 per cent rise in revenue and a 7 per cent drop in net income. Capex will decline to TWD13.9 billion this year.