Skip to Content »

Wireless Federation » archive for 'U.S'

Motorola leads the US mobile phone market share at 26% (US)

  • August 11th, 2008
  • 11:04 am

The mobile phone shipments in the US have experienced an increase of 5.3% increase in the Q2′08, as the mobile phone companies post strong results.

According to analysts, 41.9 million cellphones were shipped in the quarter, up from 39.8 million a year earlier.

Shipments are expected to drop, due to rising inflation and the consumers reduce their spending on luxury items. Even with a market that is at 80% saturation, consumers are buying replacement phones, which have become a key sales target.

Motorola, at 26%, manages to cling to its lead in the US market share. It had posted a wider loss of $346 million in the Q2′08, and has plans to seperate its mobile phone unit from its other operations. Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics, commented that “Motorola is not yet out of the woods, but these are encouraging, early signs of stabilization.”

Worldwide, Motorola saw its market share fall to the third position.

LG came second in the U.S. market as it sold 16.8 million phones in the H1′08 and aims to hold 22% of the market by the end of the year.

Whereas, RIMM, BlackBerry gains a double digit market share for the first time in the US market as the firm is offering an increased the number of handsets.

Collectively, the quater seemed to appear better than expected for the mobile phone manufacturers as Nokia reported a leap in sales whereas Samsung Electronics Co. said its handset sales helped boost its profit 51%.

   

Virgin Mobile losses 190,100 prepaid subscribers (US)

  • August 8th, 2008
  • 10:41 am

Virgin Mobile has posted low revenues of £143.9 million for Q2, despite increased number of subscribers compared to that in last year.

It claimed 55,900 net contract additions in the quarter, up from 52,800 last year. It had 491,600 contract subscribers at quarter’s end, showing growth of 64% in the last year.

The company has suffered 190,100 prepay disconnections. The reason behind this suffering is not “engaging heavily in the low price handset end of the prepay market” during a time of market turmoil.

A stable ARPU of £10.65 and operational cash flow up slightly at £35.5 million in the Q2.

Virgin Media chief executive Neil Berkett said: “We have successfully undertaken actions to improve Mobile prepay performance including selective price increases, better focused customer retention activity and efforts to reduce customer acquisition costs.”

The MVNO is also planning to launch a mobile broadband service at the end of the fourth quarter.

   

World Bank states India as the world’s second largest mobile market (India)

  • August 8th, 2008
  • 8:21 am

The Indian mobile market has been growing leaps and bounds during last three years, making India the second largest mobile market in the world, states a World Bank study .

ET reports, the number of mobile susbscribers in India has reached nearly 250 million, says the study, The Role of Mobile Phones in Sustainable Rural Poverty Reduction.

According to the study India is second only to China, with teledensity above 25%.

India adds about 8-9 million new subscribers per month, while China adds 6-7 million and US adds 2-3 million.

According to the study released recently, “The private sector is also active in India and there are a number of telecommunication companies providing mobile telephone services who have to compete for market share and meet consumer expectations.”

The study argues that mobile market has a massive impact on economic welfare by generating GDP, jobs, increased productivity and the taxation revenue has become a sizeable contributor.

   

Globe Telecom acquires Entertainment Gateway Group for USD7.9 million (Philippines)

  • August 5th, 2008
  • 6:10 am

Globe Telecom, Fillipino mobile operator, has announced it acquiring 100% of Entertainment Gateway Group, mobile content distribution group, and it’s EGGstreme unit, for PHP351 million (USD7.9 million). The mobile content distributor offers a range of VAS like music, games, news, information, chat and web-to-mobile messaging to subscribers of Philippines and abroad. It’sforiegn markets include Japan, US, Hong Kong and Middle East.

   

Nortel stock drops 15% in Q2 (US)

  • August 4th, 2008
  • 12:42 pm

Nortel’s turns out to be the second vendor to suffer loss in the second quarter with the week demand for CDMA equipment. Nortel’s stock drops around 15%.  Net Loss recorded $113 million compared with a $37 million dearth in second quarter last year. “Nortel faces a challenging business environment with increasing risk due to general macro-economic weakness, continuing competitive pressures and potential of further reduced capex spending by key North American CDMA customers,” the company said.
Revenues fell by 5% year on year to $2.62 billion. Moreover, sales grows in all divisions except the carrier group, the largest segment by revenue, which saw a 2% decline to €667 million (US$1.04 billion). The services group saw a 9% rise to  (US$536 million). Despite the losses, CEO Mike Zafirovski is quite hopeful and said Nortel was on track to meet guidance for the year.

AT&T extends it’s iPhone distribution deal to 2010 (US)

  • August 4th, 2008
  • 5:00 am

AT&T has extended it’s exclusive distribution deal with Apple for the iPhone to 2010. AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson decided on the extension after he upped the ante on his iPhone bet and hatched a plan with Apple CEO Steve Jobs to get the carrier to subsidize about $300 on the device to drop it below the $200.

Apple has been a pain for the carrier when the iPhone was launched kast minth as the device encountered countless errors during the sale and activation.

ngmoco, iPhone game publisher, closes funding (US)

  • August 4th, 2008
  • 5:00 am

ngmoco, iPhone game publisher, has announced the close of a series A financing round led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, with participation from Maples Investments.ngmoco said “the investment will support its efforts to develop new games in-house as well as in collaboration with fellow gamemakers.”

ngmoco was founded earlier this year by gaming industry veterans for the solitary purpose of developing and publishing titles for the iPhone platform.

Nortel’s shares fall as it posts widened Q2 loss (US)

  • August 4th, 2008
  • 5:00 am

Nortel’s shares plunged after it posted a wide Q2 loss and forecasted a tough economic environment ahead. The stock went down $1.12, 14.7%, to close at $6.52

In a research, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue wrote that “Nortel’s report of lower orders and deferred revenue from the first quarter may indicate third-quarter revenue below Wall Street’s view.”

“Nortel’s revamped management team is doing a commendable job given the macro challenges and the limited internal resources,” Sue wrote.

   

iPhone developers can now get daily download stats (US)

  • August 2nd, 2008
  • 10:31 am

Now the iPhone developers can keep a track of how the applications are doing in the App Store with daily updates. All they have to do is go to iTunes Connect to find out how many times the apps are being downloaded daily.

   

Cincinnati Bell reports net income $25.6 million & Revenue $351.2 million (US)

  • August 1st, 2008
  • 1:53 pm

Cincinnati Bell shows net income of $25.6 million for the quarter ended 30 June 2008 compared to $24.2 million in the same period last year. Cincinnati Bell provides products and services to residential and business customers in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Revenue rose to $351.2 million from $329.1 million.

575,000 mobile subscribers at the end of June 2008. Comparing the second quarter of 2007 Post-paid quarterly average revenue per user (ARPU) was $47.36, down slightly. Pre-paid ARPU was $25.75, up 15% year-on-year. But pre-paid subscribers declined 4%.