Top articles
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Nokia 3Q08 results
Nokia reported a 30% drop in 3Q08 net profit to €1.1bn, while sales were down 5% to €12.2bn. The operating profit was down 21% to €1.5bn, but the operating margin remains strong at 12% (still 19% in the device unit). Devices and services sales amounted...
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Sony Ericsson 3Q08 results
The handset maker reports a net loss of €25m, down from a net profit of €267m a year ago, gross margin fell 9pp to 22% due to fierce competition and slowing market growth in mature markets. Sales dropped 10% to €2.8bn, following the decline in average...
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Market Corner - 21/10/08
A few set of market information released this week: Social networking is exploding in mobile, and ABI Research found that about 70% of social networkers were using MySpace and Facebook, far ahead of other sites (no more than 15% adoption). In-Stat found...
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Subscriber stats - 21/10/08
China : about 85m Chinese people use cell phones to access the Internet, while there were 275m internet subscribers by the end of Sept. 08. There were 616m (+69m) mobile subs. and 354m landlines (-11m) at the end of the period. China Netcom currently...
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Vendor Corner - 21/10/08
HP unveils enhancements to its OpenVMS operating system. The new system 8.4 will be available in 2H09. Apple has already sold 5m iPhone 3G (to add to 3.1m iPhone first version). The target for Apple is to reach 10m units (in total) by the end of the year....
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Awards - 21/10/08
Sony Ericsson sells the W 760a Walkman handset to ATT under a 2-year contract. Huawei and NSN are selected to build Bell and Telus' HSPA network in Canada. Huawei will deploy HT Mobile (Vietnam) GSM network. Ericsson is expanding Grameenphone (Bangladesh)'...
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Operator Corner (1) - 21/10/08
T-Mobile would have ordered over 1.5m G1 smartphone (Android-based handset) to HTC, asking the Taiwanese maker to triple its production. Verizon Wireless denies it has decided to increase text fees for content aggregators. It is official: Bell and Telus...
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Operator Corner (2) - 21/10/08
Orange will provide MGM-based content on its pay-TV services. Orange UK has suspended the sales of the BlackBerry Bold smartphone, due to software bugs. Telefonica increases its stake into Iberbanda (Spain) to 59% (+8%) in order to boost its broadband...
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Operator corner (3) - 21/10/08
China Netcom and China Unicom complete merger for a value of about $24bn. Telecom NZ plans to upgrade its 3G services to countrywide coverage by June 2009. Zong (China Mobile in Pakistan) has expanded its GSM coverage in Pakistan. Verizon Business expands...
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Financial Performance - 21/10/08
Analyst Corner: telecom stocks suffered from the crisis, with RBC lowering ATT price target to $32 (down 30%), Sprint price target to $7 (down 30%), Verizon Wireless down 16% to $31. RBC lowered also Broadcom by 40% to $22, Alvarion to $6 (down 40%)....
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Regulation Corner - 21/10/08
SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation) nations are meeting this week to find out new mechanisms to slash roaming rates in the region. China is planning to allocate additional radio spectrum to the homegrown 3G service. Cofetel (Mexico)...
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People - 21/10/08
Verizon Wireless has names Mark Harris vice president of National Government Sales and Operations. SFR: Michel Paulin (ex-Neuf Cegetel) quits SFR as well as Philippe de Cuverville and Jacques Veyrat . Pierre-Alain Allemand will be the new Networking GM,...
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Top African markets
Change among top African markets, with Nigeria passing over S. Africa as continent leader. Nigeria had 51.7m mobile subscribers while S. Africa stood at 42.1m. Where S. Africa has almost 100% mobile penetration rate, Nigeria has yet plenty room to grow...
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Crisis impact
Day after day, more news confirm tough times for coming months. From financial, the crisis is now economical, and the telecom industry is not out. With the credit crunch, planned merger and acquisitions are questioned: Verizon Wireless and AllTel, TDC...
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Market Corner - 13/10/08
A few set of market information released this week: ABI Research predicts 54m CDMA EV-DO Rev. A subscribers and 25m CDMA EV-DO Rev. B subscribers by 2013. According to In-Stat, worldwide base station shipments are slowing despite 3G deployments and large...
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Subscriber Stats - 13/10/08
Zain Tanzania currently has 3.3m cellular subscribers, and plans to have 3.8m by the end of the year. Brazil had about 24.3m residential internet subscribers by the end of August. Millicom International has 7.6m (+98%) mobile subscribers in 7 African...
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Vendor Corner - 13/10/08
RIM launches “Storm”, its latest touchscreen smartphone. Speculation raises that RIM could be bought by Microsoft. To be continued ...... Nokia and Nuance are teaming to deliver mobile speech and predictive text capabilities across Nokia mobile devices....
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Operator Corner (1) - 13/10/08
Etisalat announced it plans to buy a Middle-Eastern telecom operator and enter the Iraqi telecom market. TDC cancels its plan to sell Hungarian Telephone and Cable Corporation (HTCC). OTE launches an IPTV trial. FT/ Orange has been awarded a 3G license...
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Operator Corner (2) - 13/10/08
Vodafone Australia cut its 1 GB mobile broadband plan by 33% in anticipation of lower consumer confidence. KT (S. Korea) will work with Apple to combine the iPhone and its high-speed internet WIBRO services. SingTel plans to increase its fixed line rates...
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Financial Performance - 13/10/08
Analyst Corner: CSFB lowered by 10% ATT' share price to $34, due to wireline concerns. RBC lowered ALU price by 40% to $3, due to economical slowdown and credit crisis; ALU share price is down 60% from January 1. Ericsson price was also cut by 25% by...
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Regulation Corner - 13/10/08
The Chinese Government has required telcos to share and jointly build infrastructure. This mainly concerns towers and ducts. This will mainly benefit to China Telecom and China Unicom, accelerate their mobile service roll-out and cut capex. Pakistan cut...
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GSM increases its dominance in APAC too
In 2Q08, the GSM technology was chosen by over 97% of new connections in APAC, surpassing the current share of 80% of all cellular customers in the region – 1.24bn GSM-based customers vs 191m CDMA subscribers. Despite its own advantages, CDMA seems have...
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Water in wine!
For the past thirty years, everywhere in the world, the key words were: deregulation, market and competitive forces, and light regulation when necessary. The success today is certainly not yet at the expected level 30 years ago, but the strategy has brought...
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The Millenial generation: the Future
It is the new fashionable commercial target for operators and specially for MNOs. In two words, it is the segment of consumers born between 1980 and 2000, made of several hundreds million consumers, not yet with enough income, but they will be in some...
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Mind the flaw!
Finnish firm Outpost 24 has revealed a flaw in the IP protocol that can disrupt any computer or server. Only by sending special TCP/IP packets, attackers can damage computers and servers, and firewall are useless in this case. After the DNS case, it another...