Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom has reported declines in profit for both the fourth quarter and full year 2014, due to rising costs and declining fixed voice revenue.
Fourth quarter profit fell 12.6% year-on-year to TW$8.07 billion ($256.6 million), while for the full year profit declined 2.7% by TW$38.62 billion.
Revenue for the fourth quarter grew 1.4% to TW$59.63 billion, with mobile revenue up 2.2% to TW$28.9 billion, or 48.5% of total revenue.
Chunghwa's 4G subscriber base grew to 1.33 million, giving it a market share of 38.6%. The operator launched LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation technology in December, and has set a target of achieving 99% population coverage island-wide with its LTE network by the end of this year.
Internet revenue increased 2.8% to TW$6.69 billion, but domestic fixed revenue fell 1.6% to TW$19.6 billion and international fixed revenue shrank 4.9% to TW$3.5 billion.
For the full year, total revenue increased a more modest 0.6% to TW$226.61 billion, with mobile revenue up a mere 0.1% to TW$110.67 billion.
Internet revenue grew 2.2% to TW$26 billion, but domestic fixed line revenue fell 2% to TW$72.06 billion and international fixed revenue fell 2.8% to TW$15.31 billion.
Operating expenses increased 6.7% year-on-year in the fourth quarter to TW$50.89 billion, primarily due to a higher cost of handsets sold and increasing depreciation and ICT project costs. But capex during the quarter decreased by 11.4% to TW$11.59 billion.
Looking ahead to 2015, Chunghwa expects a 2% increase in revenue but a 2.9% decline in net profit to TW$37.5 billion.