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Sale of Wind and 3Italia’s Eiffel tower fails (Italy)

  • September 30th, 2008
  • 6:38 am

Wind and 3 Italia, fail to sell the jointly owned mobile tower network, Eiffel, valued at EUR1.5 billion (USD2.2 billion), to Digital Multimedia Technologies (DMT).
A DMT statement said, ‘DMT informs that the project of combination of the tower business of Wind Telecommunicazioni SpA and H3G SpA is definitively over.’

   

Wind’s subscriber base grows to 16.1 million in H1′08 (Italy)

  • September 5th, 2008
  • 9:47 am

Wind, the Italian telecom operator, has reported revenues of of EUR 2.69 billion for H1′08, up by 5.4%, which was driven by the 4.9% growth in telecom service revenues to EUR 2.576 billion.
The mobile revenues rose by by 3.8% to EUR 1.769 billion, despite a mobile termination cut in July 2007.
Wind’s EBITDA in the H1′08 went up to EUR 974 million, growing by 9.7%. The net profit amounted to EUR 147 million H1. Wind’s mobile subscriber base grew by 5.6% year-on-year to 16.1 million by the end of June and the ARPU decreased from EUR 19 in H1′07 to EUR 18.7 in H1′08.

   

Subscribers in Italy will reach the mark of 96.8 mln in 2010

  • August 18th, 2008
  • 5:57 am

Italy has one of Europe’s most lively mobile markets, supported by a large population keen to try new services. Italy has the third highest penetration rate in the world with a 100% penetration rate in the 15 to 54 age range. With little room for growth in terms of subscriber numbers, competition between operators turns to pricing strategies which will cause ARPU to fall by 3.4% year on year from $34.7pcm in 2005 to $32.4pcm in 2007. Rising ARPU from data services and the ability of operators to distinguish themselves via data services remains the best opportunity for operators to stem falling ARPU.The market is dominated by three operators, while a fourth, 3 Italia, has struggled to make a profit or significantly expand its customer base. All four providers operate 3G networks, while investments in network upgrades have provided rich opportunities for mobile data use among consumers.

Notable highlights of Italy Mobile Forecast include:

  • Wireless penetration levels in Italy will increase from our projected 156.4% in 2008 to our forecasted 163.4% (previously 165.3%) in 2010.
  • Total subscribers in Italy to increase from 92.5 million in 2008 to 96.8 million in 2010.
  • In 2010, market shares (by subscribers) of the four major operators in Italy will be 40.1%, 32.7%, 16.7% and 9.8% for TIM, OPI Vodafone, Wind, and 3 (Hutchison) respectively.

Italian telecom and antitrust authorities SMS/MMS service probe (Italy)

  • August 1st, 2008
  • 7:54 am

Italy’s telecom and antitrust authorities have launched a joint investigation, in the Italian Market, into transparency of prices and offers of SMS and MMS.

According to the two authorities, the SMS and MMs market together topped the revenue share with EUR4 billion in 2007.

“The two authorities intend to collect data and analyze information and documents on prices and offers for the both kind of services,” the statement said.

The regulators noticed that Italian Operators like Telecom Italia SpA, Vodafone, Wind and 3 Italia, offer a huge variety of offers to different profiles of clients, with huge discrepancies among prices.

   

Only 2 firms left in Italian tower sale (Italy)

  • July 28th, 2008
  • 1:52 pm

DMT, Italian comunications tower operator is in exclusive negotiations with cellular operator 3 Italia and Wind over the sale of network towers. DMT and Spain’s Abertis Infraestructuras are the only companies left in the running to acquire the transmission towers held by the two cellcos. The tower assets could be worth between EUR1.5 billion and EUR2 billion.

Italy’s Wind launches web mail services (Italy

  • June 25th, 2008
  • 2:35 pm

Broadband provider Wind Telecomunicazioni has launched a redesigned Libero Webmail service powered by Critical Path’s Memova Messaging solution.

Libero is Italy’s biggest email service provider and hosts the country’s largest Internet community with about 11 million active members.

The company claims is also the first fully integrated portal for fixed, mobile and Internet services for Italian consumers and offers a range of content and services, such as search, news, sports, finance, business, entertainment, blogging, dating, shopping and specialty channels.

   

Wind orders wireless access platform (Italy)

  • January 21st, 2008
  • 5:52 am

Cellular News reports that Japanese suppliers NEC and Sumitomo Corp. have signed a framework contract with Italian mobile phone operator Wind for the supply of NEC’s PASOLINK NEO point-to-point wireless access systems. The PASOLINK NEO is able to handle different transmission speeds and interfaces over the same platform, making it more flexible than other microwave access products and allowing easier and more cost efficient expansion of networks when operators need to increase capacity. ‘NEC has been chosen by Wind based on the quality and resilience of the equipment, and we are looking forward for a successful implementation’, said Philip Tohme, Wind’s Chief Technology Officer.

   

 

Wind launches IPTV service with Alcatel-Lucent (Italy)

  • December 10th, 2007
  • 2:41 pm

Italian telecommunications company Wind has launched a commercial IPTV service based on Alcatel-Lucent’s products and the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV and multimedia platform. Alcatel-Lucent’s IPTV service includes an IP/MPLS network infrastructure based on its 7750 service router combined with integration and implementation expertise. Alcatel-Lucent’s system integrates the Microsoft Mediaroom platform for TV service delivery. The service also utilises Alcatel-Lucent’s IP transformation centre resources. Wind’s IPTV service is available to 2 million households in its first phase and offers features like instant channel change, multiple picture-in-picture, personal video recorder functionality and video on demand.

   

Orascom Telecom denies report of sale (Egypt)

  • December 10th, 2007
  • 1:52 pm

Orascom Telecom has appointed investment bankers to consider strategic options including a possible auction of the company, reports UK paper The Times. A deal could value the company at up to USD 17 billion. According to the paper’s sources, informal discussions over the future of Orascom have already been held with Deutsche Telekom. However, the discussions were at a very early stage and may not result in a deal. Other possible buyers include Vodafone, Telefonica and France Telecom. Orascom, which is based in Egypt, operates in nine countries in the Middle East and Africa. Separately, its CEO Naguib Sawiris told the Financial Times that Orascom is not up for sale. However, he confirmed that he is still talking to private equity groups to take a minority stake in his holding Weather Investments, which controls Italian and Greek operator Wind.

   

Wind’s quarterly net profit grows 81% to EUR 67 million (Italy)

  • November 17th, 2007
  • 6:38 am

Italian telecommunications operator Wind reports a net profit of EUR 67 million during the third quarter of this year, up 81 percent on the same period last year. Revenues increased by 4.6 percent to EUR 1.302 billion, while EBITDA achieved a record result at EUR 476 million. During the first nine months of this year, the operator reported a net loss of EUR 55 million, while revenues totaled EUR 3.858 billion, growing by 4.3 percent year-on-year. EBITDA from January to September was EUR 1.365 billion (+7.6% y-o-y), .

Wind’s mobile customer base as of 30 September exceeded 15.3 million subscribers, a 5.7 percent growth over the same period of 2006. Wind’s mobile ARPU in the first nine months of the year continued to increase reaching EUR 19. Overall traffic volumes continued to grow sharply, up 27 percent, reaching 21.5 billion minutes while the number of SMSs grew 62 percent to over 4.7 billion messages.

In the first nine months of this year, Wind’s fixed line subsidiary Infostrada’s commercial push was increasingly focussed on the expansion of its direct subscriber base, both for voice and broadband internet services, which resulted in 61 percent growth to 1.33 million customers on 30 September. Of these, our direct voice customers grew 63 percent reaching 1.27 million, while the number broadband customers grew 33 percent to 942,000 on 30 September 2007. The strong performance recorded by the fixed-line and Internet business is the combined result of a highly appealing product portfolio, of an effective advertising campaign and of the completion of the target unbundling coverage which extends to 845 LLU sites or approximately 40 percent household coverage.