Taiwanese telecom operator Chunghwa Telecom has published a report stating that the pre-tax profit of the company is expected to be NTD11.79 billion in the third quarter of 2009, a significant decrease compared with the NTD17.28 billion in the same period of last year.

The report states that affected by the economic slowdown and the reduction of communication fees by the telecom supervision department, its revenue in the third quarter of 2009 is expected to decrease by 1.8% year-on-year to NTD45.85 billion.

For expenditure, the company's operating costs may rise 5% over the previous year to NTD9.04 billion and the costs increase is mainly attributed to the increase of the electricity fees and the mobile phone costs. However, the company did not mention the reasons for the decrease of its pre-tax profit.

According to Chunghwa Telecom's semi-annual financial report, its revenue from January to June 2009 was NTD90.37 billion, a decrease of 3.2% compared with the same period of last year; its operating profit was NTD28.5 billion; and its net profit was NTD22.33 billion.