SoftBank places its first overseas branch in Taiwan

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on November 30, 2006. It reports that Japan's SoftBank recently opened its first overseas branch in Taiwan, in order to deal with the company's digital-content business in the greater Chinese region and the rest of Asia.

The newly established Taiwan branch is responsible for introducing to Japan those interesting digital contents collected in the rest of Asia, and for bringing to Taiwan those contents that are popular in Japan. The Japan-based TV Bank, an Internet content venture between SoftBank and Yahoo!, will supply and receive the contents to and from the branch. TV Bank now stores over 100,000 streaming contents and has signed up 3 to 4 million viewers a month. It is currently Japan's No.1 digital-content web site.

The Taiwan branch also plans to shoot pictures of Taiwanese sceneries and delicacies for TV Bank and to place the contents on its platforms. Meanwhile, SoftBank plans to set foot in Hong Kong's and Singapore's digital-content markets in 2007.

According to this article, SoftBank plans to sell nearly half of its ownership in the Taiwan branch to Taiwanese enterprises, as part of its plan to enter into strategic alliances with local enterprises. Many local heavyweights have expressed their interests in this regard, including Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., Kinpo Electronics Inc., Formosa Television, and Hitron Technologies Inc.