Alcatel-Lucent Q1 revenues grow by 15% (France)
Alcatel-Lucent has reported that its Q1 revenues grew by 15.2 percent to US$5.44 billion compared to the year-earlier period.
Networks operations saw a strong year-on-year increase as all divisions grew their turnover.
Wireless revenues rose by nearly 34 percent, driven by sales of WCDMA, CDMA EV-DO and LTE equipment.
IP revenues rose by over 20 percent. Geographically, North American growth was up 40 percent on the first quarter of 2010 and accelerated vis-a-vis the fourth quarter of last year.
Revenues in Europe were down 1 percent, with sales in Western and Eastern Europe declining at about the same rate. China helped the Asia-Pacific achieve some growth despite lower sales in the rest of the region.
Sales in Brazil and Mexico drove rest of world sales, which were increased in the low double digits on the first quarter of 2010. Alcatel-Lucent reported a US$18.92 million adjusted operating profit in its latest period, compared with a US$283.86 million operating loss in the first quarter of the previous year, when it was hit by a sluggish world market and components shortages.
Its gross margin benefited from a good geographical and product mix, reaching 36.2 percent in the quarter, compared to 32.6 percent in the year-earlier period and 36.2 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
The company explains the sequential stability in gross margin by the better product and geographical mix compensating for lower volumes.
Alcatel-Lucent reported a US$14.55 million net loss (group share), including a US$10.44 million one-time gain related to its management pension plan in the US. This compares to a year-earlier loss of US$794.68 million.
Nokia Siemens demonstrates LTE in Brazil
Nokia Siemens Networks will be demonstrating its LTE network equipment for Brazilian mobile telephony operators this week.
The manufacturer has set up a mini 4G network in the convention centre in Barra da Tijuca (Rio de Janeiro), with a server, base station and two laptops connected via LTE dongles.
The company is demonstrating the streaming of up to four HD videos simultaneously to the two laptops, reaching peak speeds of 70 Mbps download and 40 Mbps upload.
Other applications demonstrated are 3D video streaming, video conferencing, and VoIP calls.
Brazilians increasingly take to internet banking
Figures by Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban) shows that mearly one in four banking transactions made in Brazil in 2010 was conducted through internet banking.
The internet was used for 12.9 billion transactions performed by banks last year, corresponding to 23 percent of a total of 56 billion operations.
Mobile banking in turn, is still in its infancy, but increased by 72 percent in 2010, with 2.2 million accounts.
According to Febraban, the number of customers using the internet has grown faster in comparison with growth in current accounts. Total spending on IT and communications by banks amounted to US$13.62 billion in 2010, a figure 15 percent higher than recorded in 2009.
Vivo confirms departure of CEO Roberto Oliveira de Lima (Brazil)
Vivo Participacoes has stated that the CEO of mobile operator Vivo, Roberto Oliveira de Lima, will leave the company from 30 June.
Lima has been with Vivo for the past six years, helping the company consolidate its leadership position on the mobile market.
The company did not name a replacement for him.
Anatel to launch 2.5GHz auction in January 2012 (Brazil)
Anatel is planning to bring forward by six months the auction of the 2.5GHz band, originally scheduled for July 2012.
The statement was made by Joao Rezende, an adviser of the regulatory agency, during the plenary meeting of the GSMA Association in Rio de Janeiro.
The auction rules are in the final stages of definition and one of the conditions will be meeting the communications needs of the World Cup 2014. Rezende anticipates that the auction could take place in January, or, in the worst case scenario, in February 2012.
Embratel Q1 revenues rise by 8% (Brazil)
Embratel has reported that its first-quarter net profit of US$11.38 million, up from US$118.09 milion in the year-earlier period.
EBITDA amounted to US$498 million in the first quarter, a 2.6% decrease over the same period of 2010, and revenues rose 8%.
Across its services, local services revenue climbed 16.2 percent, revenue from data communication grew 2.9 percent, and long-distance revenue declined 4.8 percent compared to the same period last year.
America Movil considers 4G launch in 2012 (Brazil)
America Movil’s CEO Daniel Hajj has stated that the company is considering a bigger share of the Brazilian market to power growth, though the cost of winning new subscribers may decrease earnings in the short term.
The operator is betting on postpaid mobile subscribers and satellite DTH TV to boost expansion in Brazil.
he added that they are still going to grow a lot in Brazil. [...] They are trying to position their brand Claro better … they are growing a lot in TV and the cost of content has been very important. the company is growing clients very strong in general, and in the postpaid (wireless) market in particular.
According to Hajj, America Movil is currently studying who would be the vendors of 4G handsets and where it would invest. But he thinks that in 2012 they could be ready to launch 4G technology in some countries, depending on the availability of spectrum that we have in each of them.
Alcatel-Lucent opens technology showcase centre in Brazil
Alcatel-Lucent has opened a technology showcase centre in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
The centre will highlight a range of advanced technologies and applications – including 4G LTE, video applications, cloud and location-based services – to help Brazilian fixed and mobile service providers meet the mobile data explosion occurring across their networks.
Covering nearly 15,400 square feet of space in the company’s premises in Sao Paulo, the centre will receive visitors from Brazil and other countries in Latin America. The facility features executive meeting rooms with full videoconference capability to host customers and help them experience the technologies available in the centre.
Including the new location in Brazil, Alcatel-Lucent has currently has 11 technology showcase centres worldwide: Plano (USA), Murray Hill (USA), Whippany (USA), Ottawa (Canada), Sydney, Australia), Shanghai (China), Antwerp (Belgium), Paris (France), Moscow (Russia) and Cairo (Egypt).
Oi introduces prepaid bonus offer (Brazil)
Oi has introduced a Mother’s Day offer for customers with the Oi Card and Oi Control.
Prepaid customers can earn a bonus of up to US$571.83 every month to talk with fixed phones, Oi mobile phones, make direct long-distance calls, send SMS and access the internet.
On the Oi card, the amount of the bonus depends on the top-up value. With a minimum top-up of US$3.18, the client receives daily bonuses of US$6.35.
For top-ups of US$6.35, customers earn bonuses of US$12.71 every day. For Oi Control customers, with a new top-up of US$12.71 customers earn bonuses of US$25.41 per day.
TIM Brasil Q1 revenues grow by 13.8%
TIM Brasil closed the first quarter with a subscriber base of 52.8 million lines, up 24.7 percent from a year earlier. Net additions in the three months to March totaled 1.8 million. Revenues rose 13.8 percent helped by 32.3 percent growth in data revenues.
According to TIM, it had over 1.3 million daily unique users for data services, while smartphone sales have quadrupled in the past year and SMS traffic is up sharply since its Torpedo offer launched in February. Voice traffic was also up thanks to on-net offers, with MOU rising 27 percent from a year ago to 126 minutes per customer.
