 | |
 Headquarters at PCCW Tower in Taikoo Place | |
| Formerly |
|
|---|---|
| Company type | Public |
| SEHK: 6823 | |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Predecessor |
|
| Founded | 1925 (as Hongkong Telephone) 1987 (as Hong Kong Telecom) |
| Headquarters | Hong Kong |
Key people | Richard Li |
| Brands | Netvigator |
| Services |
|
| Revenue |  HK$33.3 billion (2017) |
 HK$5.1 billion (2017) | |
| Total assets | HK$95.4 billion (2017) |
| Total equity |  HK$39 billion (2017) |
Number of employees | over 15,900[1] (2020) |
| Parent | PCCW |
| Subsidiaries | |
| Website | hkt.com |
| Footnotes / references in consolidated financial statement[2] | |
HKT Limited (Chinese: 香港電訊有限公司; Cantonese Yale: Hēunggóng dihnseun yáuhhaahngūngsī), also known as Hong Kong Telecom (Chinese: 香港電訊; Cantonese Yale: Hēunggóng dihnseun), is one of the largest telecommunications companies in Hong Kong. It has a dominant position in fixed-line, mobile, IDD and broadband services in Hong Kong. HKT Group is a subsidiary of PCCW since 2000, after it was acquired from Cable & Wireless plc.
The company, along with HKT Trust (Chinese: 香港電訊信託), is a pair of listed corporations on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which the two corporations were bundled as one single stapled security.
The former holding company of the group was Cable & Wireless HKT Limited (Chinese: 香港電訊有限公司; former ticker symbol: 8). It was a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless plc. It was taken over and privatised by PCCW in 2000.[3] PCCW also started to use the ticker symbol "8" after the takeover. Cable & Wireless HKT Limited was formerly known as Hong Kong Telecommunications Limited (Chinese: 香港電訊有限公司), which was incorporated in 1987;[4] it was renamed to Cable & Wireless HKT Limited in 1999,[4] but renamed again to PCCW-HKT Limited in 2000;[4] PCCW-HKT still use the same registered Chinese name (香港電訊有限公司) until 2011, which in the same year the Chinese name became the registered Chinese name of HKT Limited instead.[4]
PCCW-HKT had a major subsidiary PCCW-HKT Telephone Limited (Chinese: 香港電話有限公司),[5] which was incorporated in 1925 under the name Hongkong Telephone Company, Limited;[4] it was briefly known as Cable & Wireless HKT Telephone Limited (Chinese: 香港電話有限公司) from 1999 to 2000.[4] As of 31 December 2017[update], PCCW-HKT[2]: 80 as well as PCCW-HKT Telephone were still live, wholly owned subsidiaries of PCCW.[2]: 78 However, the telephone services are now provided by HKT's wholly owned subsidiary, Hong Kong Telecommunications (HKT) Limited instead,[6] after a group restructuring in 2008.[7]
In October 2011, PCCW shareholders approved a partial spin-off of the assets as HKT on the Hong Kong stock exchange (but excluding the two legal persons PCCW-HKT and PCCW-HKT Telephone). HKT was successfully listed on 29 November 2011, as HKT Limited and HKT Trust.[8][9] HKT Limited was incorporated in the Cayman Islands, while its direct parent entity, HKT Trust, was set up in Hong Kong under the laws of Hong Kong.[6]
Domestic telecommunications facilities in Hong Kong became more advanced in 1925 when the Hong Kong Telephone Company Limited (HKTC) took over the interests of John Pender's China and Japan Telephone and Electric Company. The company's mandate included providing all the British colonies with local telephone services. Over the next six decades, Hong Kong Telephone's line capacity grew to more than 2.5 million, with the company serving approximately six million people.[10]
Telecommunications became increasingly important following World War I, and in 1929 the British companies Marconi Wireless and Eastern Telegraph joined to establish Cable & Wireless. The company's strategy was to supply telephone and telegraph services in Britain's colonies, and it succeeded in securing an exclusive franchise to provide international communications services in Hong Kong.[10]
By 1972, the company's biggest operation was its subsidiary in rapidly growing Hong Kong. Hong Kong Telephone, meanwhile, built a new headquarters in 1972. The company's growth was said to typify the colony's transition from an economy based on manufacturing to one dependent on service industries, which created a demand for telecommunications services. In 1975 Hong Kong Telephone's franchise for domestic service in the colony was extended for an additional 20 years, to expire just ahead of Hong Kong's reversion to China's control in 1997.[10]
HKT Group Holdings Limited was formed in 2008 to hold the telecommunications services, media and IT businesses of the PCCW Group, a reorganization designed to improve the Group's operational efficiencies.[28]: 166 HKT and its predecessor PCCW-HKT, was the first quadruple play provider in Hong Kong, offering media content and services for fixed-line, broadband Internet, TV and mobile. PCCW acquired HKT, at that time known as Cable & Wireless HKT, in February 2000 from Cable & Wireless.[32]
The HKT Commercial Group provides ICT services to small, medium and large enterprises. The group managed the installation of Asia's largest IP-enabled network for securities and derivatives markets, built for Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and known as SDNet. It includes an electronic passport system, known as e-PASS, and the Smart Identity Card system for the Hong Kong SAR Government.[33]
|
Main article: Netvigator |
Netvigator is a residential and commercial Internet service provider in Hong Kong, a brand of HKT Limited. It is Hong Kong's largest Internet service provider (ISP).[34][35]
|
Main article: CSL Mobile |
CSL Mobile is an HKT subsidiary, which operates mobile network brands of "csl", "1O1O" and "Club SIM" in Hong Kong.[36] CSL, at that time incorporated as CSL New World Mobility, was re-acquired by PCCW via HKT in 2013. After the 2013 acquisition, HKT also merged PCCW Mobile HK into CSL. CSL was sold by PCCW in 2001, while PCCW Mobile HK, formerly SUNDAY, was acquired by PCCW in 2005–06.
|
Main article: Sun Mobile |
SUN Mobile, formerly New World Mobility, is a joint venture of HKT Limited and Telecom Digital. It was a former joint venture of CSL New World Mobility and Telecom Digital. In 2013 CSL New World Mobility was acquired by PCCW via HKT Limited, from Telstra and New World Development, thus the mobile virtual network operator was re-branded as SUN Mobile.
PCCW Global (formerly Beyond The Network America[40][non-primary source needed]) is the international operating division of HKT Limited.[41][non-primary source needed] It was owned by PCCW's sub-holding company HKT Group Holdings Limited (HKTGH) since 2008[28]: 166 and HKT Limited since its IPO in 2011.[28]: 167
PCCW Global acquired Gateway Communications in 2012[30] and Console Connect in 2017.[31][42][non-primary source needed][non-primary source needed]
On 24 February 2008, Pakistan Telecom caused a major interruption of access to the video-sharing website YouTube.[44][45][46][47] Pakistani Government authorities instructed Pakistan Telecom (PTCL) to prevent access to YouTube within Pakistan. PTCL complied by changing the BGP entry for YouTube – essentially updating its local internet address book for where YouTube's section of the internet is. The idea was to direct its internet users to a page that said YouTube was blocked. Unfortunately, the ISP announced the new route to its Internet link provider, PCCW.[48] PCCW had recently provided temporary access to PTCL in order to restore the nation's loss of internet access due to a previous major submarine cable break event. PTCL began leaking the BGP announcement to PCCW prior to PCCW's completion of the BGP validation and filtering policies process on the newly activated link. This allowed the announcement to propagate to other networks.[49]
Once detected, PCCW immediately blocked the leaked announcement from PTCL and access to YouTube was restored within 2 hours. [50][51]
|
Main article: Now TV (Hong Kong) |
now TV is an IPTV and pay-TV provider in Hong Kong delivered by PCCW Media. now TV serves Hong Kong with more than 190 channels of local, Asian and international programming, such as the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1, J-League, French Open, ATP World Tour, and World Snooker Tour. In addition, now TV is a producer of news, sports and infotainment programming and a provider of interactive services. nowTV can be viewed on its nowTV app, and select now TV content and interactive applications can also be accessed via the group's 4G mobile network and broadband service.[52]
a Hong Kong customer loyalty program.[53][54]
the developer of "Tap & Go", a prepaid mobile payment service for Hong Kong users.[55][56]
Brands and services
PCCW announced the formation of wholly owned subsidiary Cascade Limited (traditional Chinese: 萃鋒有限公司; simplified Chinese: 萃锋有限公司) in late 2002 t0 2008,[63][64][65][66] It was reported that the staff were offered a wage-cut in the new contract.[63][66] The name of Cascade is removed from now on, become a part of HKT and named as "Engineering", a business unit of HKT, simply like Commercial group of PCCW. All staff in Cascade had transferred to HKT without changing.
[67]),[28]: 166 However, due to 2011 initial public offering of HKT Limited, some of the subsidiaries of HKTGH (which HKTGH was a wholly owned subsidiary of HKT Limited[68]: 101 ) still have use the name cascade or pccw in their name due to law and finance reasons, although they wholly owned subsidiaries of HKT.[28]: 167 [29] A namesake, Mainland China-incorporated "PCCW Cascade Technology (Guangzhou) Limited" (Chinese: 广州电讯盈科萃锋科技有限公司) is a wholly owned subsidiary of HKT Limited.[69]
In 2018, it was exposed that HKT breached the land leases for 4 of their telephone exchange buildings. They were illegally converted to customers service centers.[70]
