Wireless Federation

The evergrowing competition in the Kenyan mobile market is expected to take down Safaricom’s market share which will drop from its dominant 80% to 65% in another four years. The fall will be driven by the launch of rival operators, says Chief Executive Michael Joseph.
“We will have between 65% and 70% market share by 2011,” says Michael. The closest competitor to Safaricom is Zain, which has started offering all new lowered tariffs and products, which targets the lower segment of market, which was earlier captured by Safaricom.
The state owned Telkom Kenya is speedily building up its GSM ntwork under the brand name Orange. In order to stay in competition, Safaricom has invested more in data services and is building a WiMax network, to complement its broadband service launched in August this year.
“We are diversifying our revenue streams, with a shift from the voice market. Which is becoming increasingly unattractive, due to the low tariffs, to data,” says Michael. He additionally said that the operator with its broad network can fight the agressive competition.
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France Telecom begins negotiations with the government of Togo to recieve a mobile operator licence under the brand name Orange. Faure Gnassingbe, president of the Togolese Republic, and Didier Lombard, France Telecom CEO sign an agreement to start off with the exclusive negotiations.
Togo seems like a great growth potential, with a population of 6 million and mobile penetration of 25%, to France Telecom, as it move towards its strategic development in the West African region.
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Tele2 reportedly is interested in acquiring its own mobile operator licence. According to spokesman Remco Meestra, Tele2, which operates as a MVNO on the KPN network, considers the Dutch market lacking competition and ripe for a newcomer. Presently, the operator has around 477,000 Dutch mobile subscribers. It could acquire rights to mobile spectrum from T-Mobile, which recently acquired network operator Orange Netherlands, or from KPN, which bought rival Telfort. Tele2 CEO Henrik Ringmar, said, the company does not expect to get a reasonable price from either of the rival operators. Tele2 is eyeing the upcoming spectrum auctions in the Netherlands.

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O2 has taken a lead over the two mobile giants Orange and Vodafone with it’s iPhone and Sim-only strategy. It added 31,000 more contract subscribers between July and September 2008 than its two closest competitors, Orange and Vodafone, together have.
O2 had its best ever Q3, driven by a twin strategy that focused on 3G iPhones and Simplicity Sim-only deals. It has seen the addition of 278,000 contract subscribers and a total of 402,000 subscribers across both prepay and contract.
Vodafone, for the same period, took on 207,000 new subscribers, 87,000 of which were contract subscribers. Orange added 160,000 contract subscribers but did not declare how many were prepay subscribers. T-Mobile added 96,000 contract subscribers and lost 88,000 on prepay.
The network has been aggressively pursuing to lead the market with its exclusive 3G iPhone deal, with sales fluctuating from 50,000 a week at its height in late July, at the time of iPhone’s launch, gradually dropping to around 20,000 a week – the level that sales now.
The huge contract additions, however, comes from Sim-only deals, which has enabled O2 to stack up contract subscribers while shifting the majority of its acquisition budget onto the iPhone.

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Sonatel (Senegalese operator) and banking group BICIS have signed a contract to develop Orange Money as the country’s first mobile bill paying and domestic money transfer service. Sonatel and BICIS have met the regulatory and technical pre-requisites to offer the service next year. To transfer money to other Orange money user, the fund, have to be deposited into their Orange Money account at an accredited partner’s location. At any accredited outlet, customer will be able to withdraw money from their Orange account. For the Validation and Confirmation of transactions and a PIN number for security, SMS can be used. Customers will be able to buy Orange Mobile top-ups from their Orange Money account.

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Jordan telecom group announces its third quarter results. The groups net profit increased by 7.8 per cent in comparison to the same period in 2007. The group’s net profit reached JD78.2 million compared with JD72.5 million during the same period last year, as indicated in JTG’s press release. Group’s EBITDA increased by 3.9 per cent, to JD135.9 million during the January-September period of this year. The gross operating margin augmented from 43.6% to 45.1% at the end of September 2008. According to Chief financial officer, Raslan Diranieh, “The significant growth in the gross operating margin came as a result of better controlling costs and optimisation of our resources.”"As a result of a better GOM and higher interest rate we were able to increase our net income after tax by about 8 %,” Diranieh added .
Financial figures showed that consolidated revenues for the group edged up by 0.4 per cent at the end of the third quarter to JD301 million compared to JD 299.9 million during the same period last year.
Orange Mobile’s external revenues reached JD135.3 million, 6.6 per cent higher than JD126.9 million reported at end of September 2007. JTG’s subscriber base reaches the mark of 2.48 million subscribers at the end of September 2008, up 2.1%. Capital expenditure drops 2.8 % from JD35.3 million to JD34.3 million at end of September 2008.

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The high specification N-Series range of Nokia phones has expanded again to include the new Nokia N85, a multimedia mobile phone that closely resembles the previous Nokia N96 release and holds some exciting features that consumers have come to expect from this high end range of devices.

Originally launched as a SIM free mobile phone with no network ties or ongoing line rental costs the new Nokia N85 can now be connected to Orange with a range of competitive tariffs, affordable packages and free gifts.

Owning a mobile phone by signing up to a minimum term contract deal is far from buying a SIM free mobile phone as the Nokia N85 was first offered, firstly and probably most importantly the handset is subsidised by the network meaning that they will not pay the ‘true’ value of the handset.

Instead of paying for the entire price of the Nokia N85 up-front in one payment the customer instead pays an ongoing line rental charge with a set amount of minutes and text messages bundled together, this means that the handset is far more affordable at point of sale and the consumer benefits from inclusive free calls and text throughout the contract period.

With a strong lineup of multimedia features, the Nokia N85 is taking the world of mobile convergence to the next level. Gaming, photos, navigation and music blend together with the newest Ovi and third party services via 3.5G HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity to make discovering and sharing experiences quick and seamless.

While it comes out of the box with a multitude of powerful functionality, the pre-loaded Nokia Download! application makes the Nokia N85 truly customizable by offering a wide range of bespoke content. This includes an outstanding selection of world-class branded entertainment content, the latest in mobile gaming and dynamic applications so users can really make their device their own.

A state-of-the-art 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and bright dual LED flash captures clear, sharp images as well as DVD-quality videos at 30 frames per second. Combined with A-GPS it is possible to geotag favorite pictures to see where each photo was taken using the Nokia Maps application or online sites such as Share on Ovi or Flickr.

The Nokia N85 is pre-loaded with at least 10 made-for-mobile N-Gage gaming titles that jump off of the screen thanks to the dazzling OLED display and a voucher to activate one full game license. Dedicated gaming keys light up when the device is in landscape gaming mode to further enhance the action-packed experience.

Each Nokia N85 comes with an 8 GB microSD card, up to 30 hours of music playback time and its high-fidelity sound means favorite tracks can be enjoyed virtually anywhere. Build a personal music collection from the millions of tracks and playlists available from the Nokia Music Store or other online music vendors, or synchronize PC and mobile music libraries via USB cable.

Alternatively, consumers can enjoy RDS radio or a wide selection of stations via the internet. The 3.5 mm audio jack makes connecting a top-quality headset simple and an in-built FM transmitter lets the N85 play wirelessly through a car or home stereo to really crank up the sound.

Although initially only availble as a SIM free mobile phone and on the Orange UK network the Nokia N85 is expected to be picked up by further network operators over the coming days further expanding the number of tariffs and packages available and allowing consumers to get the closest deal to their current usage requirements.

For more information log on to www.orange.co.uk

About Wireless Federation

Wireless Federation is an industry research conglomerate headquartered in London, United Kingdom. The mandate of the Wireless Federation is to provide its members and customers industry knowledge that can further enhance their understanding of the wireless industry. Wireless Federation conducts bespoke research and produces boxed reports in collabaration with Industry Bodies, Telecom Operators for Issues that revolve around ARPU, CHURN and Loyalty.
They have been associated with more than 225 mobile operators globally to set their Pricing/ Tariff Strategies, Go-To-Market Strategies for Mobile Advertising, Mobile Payments, Cutting VAS among others amongst 59 countries globally.

For more information you can log on to www.wirelessfederation.com

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France Telecom after it’s acquisition of majority stake in Uganda’s Hits Telecom, will launch all new mobile services across the country with 17% mobile penetration, is dubbed as Orange Uganda.
France Telecom, the 53% stake owner in Hits Telecom, will invest nearly $200 million in next three years to rollout the services across the nation.
According to France Telecom, Uganda has major prospects of growth to offer. France Telecom plans to look out for acquisitions in emerging markets of Africa and Asia.

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Spain adds 245,026 new mobile lines in August, with the total lines reaching 50.10 million at the end of the month. The growth was recorded at 5% on a y-to-y basis, reports the Spanish regulator, CMT. The mobile penetration reaches 110.9 lines per 100 inhabitants. The growth in M2M sector was up by 36.2% since last year, bringing the total number of mobile lines to 51.48 million. The number of postpaid subscribers added were 127,835 and the prepaid were 117,191. Vodafone, Yoigo and the MVNOs saw a positive growth in portability, whereas Movistar and Orange experienced a negative growth.
Vodafone added 18,581 new subscribers, Yoigo added 3,713 susbcribers and MVNOs recieved 1,851 net additions. On the flipside, Orange lost 18,056 ported subscribers, Movistar lost 6,089 ported subscribers.
Q2′08 figures show Vodafone accounted for 29.4% of the total net additions, Movistar for 26.7%, Orange for 20.3%, Yoigo accounted for 14.5% and MVNOs for the rest 9.1%.

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Telkom Kenya’s Orange with it’s recent launch, signs up more than 30,000 subscribers, reaching the target subscriber base for starters. Country’s third GSM operator, plans a target subscriber base of 1.5 million in one year.
“We had set a bar of 30,000 in the first three weeks and we have exceeded that,” says Dominique Saint-Jean.
Orange has it’s network in Nairobi and Mombasa, and hopes to cover the whole nation in two years. France Telecom has made an investment of nearly $110 million in Telkom Kenya, with 80 percent of that going into GSM start-up.