VimpelCom Q4 profits increase by 63% (Russia)
VimpelCom has announced its financial results, and has reported that its Q4’10 revenues rose by 22% to US$2.8 billion, and net income jumped sharply by 62.7% to US$461.2 million. For the full year, revenues rose by 20.8% to US$10.5 billion, while net income was up by 49.2% to US$1.7 billion.
For the full year, the number of mobile subscriptions increased to 92.7 million an increase of 43.5% y-o-y; broadband subscriptions grew to 3.8 million showing an increase of 66.2% year on year.
Capex was $2.2 billion; Capex to revenue ratio was 21.2%, reflecting a significant step up in 4Q10.
Telefonica plans to invest $14.6 billion in Brazilian subsidiary (Spain, Brazil)
Spain’s Telefonica is planning to invest over US$14.6 billion in its Brazilian subsidiary by 2014. According to Telefonica’s Chairman, C©sar Alierta, the expenditure would be used to upgrade and expand the network. He made the announcement following a meeting with Brazil’s President, Dilma Rousseff.
As per Alierta, they are investing heavily in expanding their services and networks with the aim of covering close to 100% of Brazil’s municipalities with telephone and broadband internet, both fixed and mobile. Their objective is to have the most modern networks in Brazil and to be pioneers in introducing new technologies to the country.
The announcement represents a 52% increase over its network CAPEX over the past four years, but will also include the expected cost of buying new mobile licenses in the forthcoming spectrum sales.
Ericsson and Vantrix partner for video optimization
Vantrix, the global leader of mobile video optimization and delivery solutions, today announced that it has been selected by Ericsson, the world’s leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators, to be their partner in video optimization. Under the terms of the agreement, Ericsson will be bundling Vantrix Bandwidth Optimizer with its Multiservice Proxy mobile broadband traffic optimization solution.
We predict that the number of global mobile broadband subscriptions will double during 2011 to 1 billion, and that video traffic will represent significant portion of the overall mobile data trafficâ€
We predict that the number of global mobile broadband subscriptions will double during 2011, to 1 billion, and that video traffic will represent significant portion of the overall mobile data traffic,†said Sanjay Kaul, Vice President, Consumer and Business Applications at Ericsson. The partnership will address our customers’ need to efficiently manage, optimize video content delivery over mobile networks, where the quality of experience becomes key.â€
Vantrix Bandwidth Optimizer optimizes video and delivers it in real time while maintaining best-in-class Quality of Experience. Vantrix Bandwidth Optimizer provides up to 70 percent savings on network CAPEX and OPEX (RAN, backhaul and core) by dynamically monitoring network congestion and substantially reducing the size of videos.
Mobile video has become an integral part of daily life and it has transformed how consumers use their mobile phones. Over the last two years, as video has become more dominant in mobile networks, mobile subscribers have endured outages and reductions in speed, resulting in an unsatisfactory video experience,†said Allan Benchetrit, President & CEO of Vantrix. We are very proud to partner with Ericsson to provide the market with the most advanced and efficient mobile video technology. Our solution is the most advanced to control, optimize and manage the delivery of video in mobile networks, while actually improving the current viewing experience.â€
About Vantrix
Vantrix, the global leader of mobile video optimization and delivery solutions, improves mobile and converged video economics for its customers by ensuring that content is delivered cost effectively, and with the best possible user experience, regardless of the service, device or network. Vantrix solutions are deployed in over 70 networks, serving over 1 billion subscribers worldwide. Vantrix is proud to count among its customers: Sprint (NYSE:S), Orange, Telefonica (NYSE:TEF), T-Mobile, TeliaSonera (OMX:TLSN), MTS, Etisalat (ADX:ETISALAT), Saudi Telecom Company (TADAWUL:STC), and Tata Telecom. Vantrix is headquartered in Montreal with offices in London, Hong Kong and Dubai. To learn more about Vantrix, visit www.vantrix.com.
MTC customer base grows to 1.53 mn in 2010 (Namibia)
MTC has revealed that it ended 2010 with a total 1.53 million active customers, an increase from 1.28 million compared to the previous year.
According to the company, revenues for the year were little changed due to the cuts in termination rates, while EBITDA improved to $785.8 million from $748 million in 2009.
Capex increased from $260 million to $410 million, almost half of which went to 3G network roll-out. The 3G investment helped data revenues grow 50% over the year, to 7.6% of total revenues by September 2010. Capex was higher than net profit for the year and a record for the company since its start.
MTC added that it was opposed to the regulator’s latest policy to cap off-net retail voice prices, stating that this is unprecedented for a regulator to intervene on retail prices. However, the company is positive on the country’s new communications law, which should allow it to gain a technology- and service-neutral licence.
Airtel Africa & East African telecom operators ensure against fraud and revenue loss
Whilst the region’s telecommunications industry has seen a quantum leap in the past decade with markets like Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda being some of the most competitive & lucrative in the whole continent there remains this shadowy side of telecoms in Africa.
Operators often compete at a cut-throat level when it comes to pricing, OPEX, CAPEX, distribution models, etc. But service providers like Airtel realise that there is money to be saved by committing to fraud and risk avoidance as well.
In Nairobi on the 6th April, the Kenyatta International Conference Centre will provide a hub and platform for learning, debating and networking around this important issue of Fraud.
In particular, 2 exclusive Master Classes will take place. The first will be run by Airtel Africa’s Group Revenue Assurance & Fraud Manager, Hawas Garba Matta, the second by an international expert Patrick Gitau of Globacom Nigeria. The whole session will be opened and chaired by Ade Banjoko, Chair of the GSM Africa Fraud Forum.
Topics and discussions in these classes will include:
• effectively integrating risk, fraud & revenue assurance into your corporate strategy
• telecoms enterprise risk management
• optimizing end-to-end fraud & revenue assurance strategies
• implementing risk based fraud & revenue assurance framework with essential from the top policyâ€
• bridging the GAPs by assessing & monitoring product life-cycle processes to identify the sources of fraud & revenue loss
• focus on optimised fraud detection through real-time capabilities
• how to tackle telecom fraud typologies in East Africa – bad debt management, process flows and inefficiencies, and capacity deficiencies problems in your network
• how to get value from RAMS and FMS
• vendor valuation criteria and considerations, and working closely with suppliers to minimise revenue leakages
The market has responded very positively to this brand new feature to East Africa Com conference and exhibition,†says Emily Cottam, Senior Conference Producer, East Africa Com. Fraud is a topic that East African operators can’t afford to overlook if they are to remain profitable in this increasingly competitive market. These master classes are a one-stop-shop for operators looking to understand and implement effective fraud prevention strategies.â€
What’s more, these master classes form just one segment of the East Africa Com 2011 conference & exhibition, now in its 7th year.
Celcom Axiata plans to invest $330 mn on network (Malaysia)
The Malaysian mobile network operator, Celcom Axiata has announced that it is planning to spend US$330 million during 2011 network coverage, capacity and quality. Of the planned CAPEX, 60% will go to enhance its data network while 40% will be spent on maintaining its current network.
The company’s network modernization exercise will eventually move the mobile network towards an all-IP infrastructure, migrating all its sites to single-RAN architecture and be ready to deploy future LTE services.
According to Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Shazalli Ramly, they will embark on an aggressive network transformation exercise and the major single-RAN migration will be taken into execution as quickly as this quarter.
He added that the company would probably spend a slightly smaller amount over the next three years to prepare the network for a future LTE service, and confirmed that the company is in talks with other networks about sharing some of their network infrastructure.
Celcom has already started trials of LTE network kit supplied by both Huawei and Ericsson, while rival network, Maxis carried out trials with kit supplied by Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei.
Telekom Malaysia Q4 revenues grow by 2.1%
Telekom Malaysia has reported its Q4 results. As per the results, the company posted revenues of US$2.9 billion in 2010, as compared to US$2.83 billion twelve months ago.
According to the company, much of the growth was due to the increasing demand for internet and data services: sales from its internet unit were increased by 5.9% year-on-year to US$559.63 million.
Net income soared 88% to US$395.03 million, partly increased by the sale of stakes in a number of affiliated companies. In its outlook for 2011, the company stated that it was targeting revenue growth of 2.5%, and an EBITDA margin of 32%, decreased slightly from 33.1% recorded in 2010 and 34% posted in 2009.
CAPEX in 2011 is expected to reach US$987.58 billion as the company continues the launch of ‘HSBB’, its high speed broadband network.
T-Mobile NL to roll out HSPA+ technology
Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile Netherlands unit is planning to deploy HSPA+ technology offering peak connections of 21Mbps in the country this year, to meet growing demand for data services from Dutch users.
T-Mobile’s initial focus is on expanding both coverage and capacity, as well as improving the network’s overall robustness.
According to CTO Olivier Baujard, the Netherlands currently has the widest penetration of smartphones and highest use of data services anywhere in Europe.
In order to cater for strong demand which has put its network under intense pressure, the cellco increased its CAPEX by one-fifth in 2010. It also created a so-called ‘smartphone challenge’ list of tips based on its experiences for handset makers, suppliers and other industry players to meet the new market conditions.
Alcatel-Lucent with China Mobile to develop Cloud-based radio access network
Alcatel-Lucent and China Mobile have announced that they are planning to develop a centralized, collaborative, Cloud-based RAN (C-RAN).
The companies believe that the C-RAN will provide a common platform for multi-mode wireless standards such as GSM, 3G, and LTE, and is expected to lower OPEX by up to 50% and CAPEX by 15%.
According to Rajeev Singh-Molares, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s activities in Asia-Pacific, the partnership with China Mobile is directly addressing the challenges of high energy costs, explosion of mobile video and sustainable development. By helping them replace traditional network designs with flexible cloud-like architectures, they are preparing the future and help show the way in terms of technology and economic models.
The strategic partnership for C-RAN will leverage Alcatel-Lucent’s recently-announced lightRadio platform.
