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Swisscom’s EBITDA drops to 3.6% in Q3′08 (Switzerland)

  • November 6th, 2008
  • 6:35 am

Swisscom’s posts third quarter result, EBITDA dropped 3.6% to CHF1.19 billion due to heavy iPhone launch costs and descending tariffs. With the launch of iPhone, Swisscom reported above-average growth, however, with over 100,000 handsets sold, but the launch had CHF45 million one-off costs. Swisscom’s net profit slipped to CHF473 million, down 31.5% in comparison to the third quarter of 2007. The overall Swisscom’s quarterly results were boosted from the sale of two business units.

Switzerland plans to sell 19% of Swisscom holding

  • October 17th, 2008
  • 10:08 am

The Swiss government plans to lessen it’s stake in Swisscom below 50%. The news came after a proposal was submitted by federal finance ministry EFD partnering with the communications regulator Bakom, which was made two months back and is being reviewed by the federal council. The reason as to why the proposal was not disclosed is due to lack of support, and the council is now waiting for the return of its member Hans-Rudolf Merz. The proposal talks about the sale of 19% stake out of it’s 52% holdings. The remaining 33% will be taken care of by an independent holding.

   

Mobily’s roaming subscribers to enjoy free incoming calls (Saudi Arabia)

  • October 13th, 2008
  • 6:34 am

Mobily, the Saudi Arabian mobile operator, has launched a new mobile tariff plan, wherein the subscribers can recieve local and international calls for free in 56 countries.
Mobily’s new call tariffs is a part of one of the largest roaming agreements which involves more than 100 GSM mobile operators across the globe.
The countries covered will be the UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Sudan, Libya, France, Switzerland, Japan, Finland, Denmark and Norway.
The new service also allow receipt of free SMS from the operating network in 51 nations, in other 5 Arab nations, the subscribers will have to select the operator.
Now the mobily subscribers can be mobile from one network to the other and that too free of cost. A one-minute call to any GCC country will cost 44 halalahs, Jordan 80, India 72, Iraq 92, and Yemen 80.

Tele2 sells off Swiss operations to TDC Sunrise for USD44.45 million (Switzerland)

  • October 1st, 2008
  • 5:26 am

Tele2, Sweden, confirms the sale of it’s Swiss operations to TDC Sunrise. Tele2 Switzerland was sold for SEK300 million (USD44.45 million) in cash on a debt and cash free basis. At the end  if June TDC Sunrise had nearly 105, 000 mobile suscribers.

   

Swisscom posts revenue growth of 17.6% (Switzerland)

  • August 13th, 2008
  • 11:38 am

Swisscom, has posted it’s H1′08 earnings. Swisscom’s revenue grew by 17.6% to CHF 5.991 billion due to the acquisition of Italian broadband operator Fastweb in spring 2007.

It’s EBITDA grew by 18.9% to CHF 2.427 billion. It’s H1 profits, reduced by CHF 89 million to CHF 840 million, reason being the early termination of around 75% of the long-term leasing agreements which is already underway.

Swisscom’s mobile subscribers grew by 8.5% in the H1 to 5.2 million.

It’s revenues in Switzerland dropped 0.5 percent to CHF 4.233 billion. Revenue generated by new mobile data services (excluding SMS) increased by 32.8% to CHF 175 million in the space of a year. Apple’s iPhone 3G, is expected to ensure further growth in this area. Average revenue per user per month (ARPU) fell by 8.8 percent to CHF 52 as a result of price reductions, while the average number of minutes per user per month (AMPU) increased by 2.7 percent to 114.

   

Sicap to help Swisscom for iPhone launch(Switzerland)

  • July 28th, 2008
  • 11:31 am

Sicap to help Swisscom in preparing 3G i-phone for its launch. Its network-based billing platform will support the Swiss Operator’s prepaid offering. According to a report which says billing solution firm Sicap responded to the marketing demands of Swisscom by implementing innovative packages for i-Phone services on the operator billing platform. Sicap’s billing platform has evolved in line with network evolution and today supports real time diameter-based data rating in an all-IP network environment.

Sicap has even assisted the Swisscom packaging of 3G iPhone. Customers are offered a choice of subscription types, ranging from subscription-free service rates for pre-paid users to volume data transfer offers for avid mobile web surfers, likely to be seduced by the synching capabilities and the embedded GPS navigation tool in the device.

Orange Switzerland reveals Euro 2008 coverage plans

  • June 3rd, 2008
  • 3:08 pm

Orange Switzerland has revealed in a press release that it will be offering unlimited access to its Orange World football section for CHF8 (USD7.7) during the European football championships to be held in Switzerland and Austria between 7 June and 29 June. The offer includes mobile TV broadcasts, live tickers, match schedules and news. The operator’s Orange LiveTV service is based on streaming via UMTS/HSDPA, allowing customers to watch all the matches of Euro 2008 on their mobile phone. For HSDPA-handset owners, the service will be broadcast in HD quality.

   

 

 

Why Swisscom is looking like a class act (Switzerland)

  • March 6th, 2008
  • 2:13 pm

Swisscom, the incumbent operator in Switzerland, released its full year results today. Revenues were up 14.9% year-on-year to €7,020 million (CHF 11,089 million) and EBITDA increased 18.9% to €2,850 million (CHF 4,501 million). Net income increased 29.4% to €1,309 million (CHF 2,068 million).

Comment: Swisscom has had a busy year, with the acquisition of Fastweb (Italian altnet) and the repurchase of a stake in its mobile unit - Swisscom Mobile. With these acquisitions having taken place during 2007, it is not surprising to see revenues increase year-on-year. What is more surprising is that Swisscom has managed to stay focused during this time and implement organisational changes at the company, which have led to improved profitability.

This in itself is some achievement, but Swisscom has managed something even more remarkable for a Western European incumbent and that is to generate positive customer growth across its fixed business. Swisscom has gained more broadband customers than it has lost fixed voice customers, recording 3.4% year-on-year growth in customer lines. Unfortunately, this was still not enough to stem the decline in fixed revenues, which fell 4.5% to €2,832m (CHF 4,474m), proving what a difficult task incumbent operators face in trying to keep their fixed business growth positive.

In other areas of the business, mobile revenues increased by 1% to €2,542 million  (CHF 4,015 million), and Solutions (Swisscom’s ICT business unit) revenues remained flat at €775 million (CHF 1,224 million). What is interesting with the Solutions unit is that despite the lack of revenue growth, EBITDA improved by 60% from €44 million to €71 million due to cost savings and an improved focus on higher-margin products and services. Like BT, Swisscom has placed high emphasis on ICT and is investing heavily in updating its network and providing better services for customers.

As for its outlook for 2008, Swisscom expects to see revenue growth of around 11% to €7.8 billion (CHF 12.3 billion) and EBITDA growth of around 6.5% to €3 billion (CHF 4.8 billion), which seems realistic allowing for the impact of Fastweb for a full year. In terms of strategy, Swisscom is focusing on improving customer service by opening more shops, developing its Bluewin TV proposition and scaling back in areas such as directory enquiries where demand is declining. All this seems sensible in an industry where price is becoming less of a differentiator and quality of service is key.

   

 

T-Systems signs tech pact with BMW F1 team (Germany)

  • January 14th, 2008
  • 6:31 am

Deutsche Telekom’s T-System unit and BMW’s Formula One team have agreed on a technology partnership, extending an existing one between the business customer unit and the world’s largest premium carmaker, a Reuters report said.

The Reuters report quoted T-Systems as saying that it had set up a high-performance data connection for the BMW racing team with links connecting locations in Munich, Germany, and Hinwil, Switzerland.

That will allow secure data exchange from the Formula 1 car’s development, test and race phases, it said.

T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom’s smallest unit, has targeted the automotive sector as one of its areas for growth. Its clients also include Daimler and Toyota, the report said.

T-Systems is also working on a logistics solution for car parts based on radio frequency identification , which will enable the identification and positioning of all vehicle and replacement parts that travel with the Formula 1 Team around the world, the report further said.

   

Swisscom ordered to offer bitstream access for 4 years (Switzerland)

  • November 23rd, 2007
  • 2:54 pm

The Swiss Federal Communications Commission (ComCom) is obliging Swisscom to provide bitstream access on the last mile for 4 years following the parliamentary recommendation. Swisscom must submit an offer with cost-based prices to rivals, as it is dominant in the market for this access variant. In 2006, the parliament decided that Swisscom had to be forced to open its last mile to its competitors via full unbundling and wholesale bitstream access, but in March of this year Swisscom declined to submit a price proposal to its competitors, because in its view it was not dominant in the market. This drove TDC subsidiary and Swiss telecommunications operator sunrise to submit an access application to ComCom, with a view to obtaining a decision in principle on the question of market dominance. ComCom came to the conclusion that Swisscom is market-dominant in relation to wholesale bitstream access. ComCom based its decision on a report which the Swiss competition commission Weko produced in the course of the procedure. Appeals against this decision of ComCom can be submitted to the Federal Administrative Court.

Swisscom takes a different view: there is active infrastructure competition and Swisscom cannot act independently on the reseller market. Swisscom does not consider itself to have a dominant position on the broadband services market. For this reason it has not provided regulated bit-stream offers to its competitors to date. Swisscom will examine the ruling in detail and decide what steps to take next.