Impact of shutting down internet and mobile phone services in Egypt
The recent figures from the OECD suggest that the five-day shut-down of internet access in Egypt resulted in direct costs of at minimum US$90 million.
This amount refers to lost revenues due to blocked telecommunications and Internet services, which account for around US$18 million per day, or, on a yearly scale, for roughly 3-4% of GDP.
Though, this amount does not include the secondary economic impacts which resulted from a loss of business in other sectors affected by the shutdown of communication services e.g. e-commerce, tourism and call centres. The IT services and outsourcing sector in Egypt has been a growing part of the economy and relies heavily on the Internet and communications networks.
IT outsourcing firms in Egypt made US$1 billion in revenues in 2010 (or around US$ 3 million per working day), servicing overseas customers through call centres, helpdesks, etc.
The longer term impact of the Internet and communications shutdown on Egypt’s economy is hard to assess.
The shutdown may impact negatively on foreign direct investment in the ICT sector and industries that rely on stable communications and the Internet. The loss of connectivity for five days to these vital business services could make them reconsider overall outsourcing plans. Attracting such firms has been a key strategy of the Egyptian government.
Egypt has other sectors that depend on Internet and communications, notably a vibrant tourism sector.
Google close to buy Groupon: report
If reports are to be believed, Google Inc is moving closer to buy e-commerce coupon website Groupon Inc for around $6 billion.
According to reports, the deal could strike as soon as this week but people with direct knowledge of the matter cautioned that the talks between Google and Groupon might still fall apart.
Groupon, a privately held, Chicago-based company which was launched about two years ago sends its members daily emails with about 200 deals for goods and services. The deals are activated only when a minimum number of people agree to make a purchase, giving Groupon power to negotiate steep group discounts on products and services.
Nokia appoints Jerri DeVard as the new Executive VP and CMO
Nokia has appointed Ms Jerri DeVard as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), a new role that will be effective from January 1, 2011.
The newly formed Marketing and Communications organization under the CMO will bring together all of Nokia’s Marketing, Brand Management, Communications and selected Industry collaboration activities.
According to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, he is delighted to welcome Jerri to the Nokia team. Her experience and proven track record from a wide range of consumer businesses will be a great boost to increasing consumer focus and will bring fresh thinking as they strive for a clearer value proposition for their consumers and continue to build the Nokia brand.
According to Niklas Savander head of Nokia’s Markets unit, with Jerri at the helm, the company expects the integrated marketing and communications activities to increase the impact of their communications and engagement with consumers and other stakeholders across the industry and across the globe.
DeVard brings with her more than 25 years of marketing experience across leading consumer brands, including Verizon, Citigroup, Revlon, Harrah’s Entertainment and the Pillsbury Company. Her expertise encompasses brand management and multi- cultural marketing, with a strong foundation on direct marketing and e- commerce. She has provided counsel not only to blue-chip companies, but also applied her experience in fund-raising efforts as part of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. More recently, DeVard has founded her own marketing group that provides advice and counsel to major consumer product companies.
Alibaba plans China delivery network
China’s leading e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, is planning to make a huge logistics network across the country as it is dissatisfied with the quality of local delivery services and wants to stay ahead of rising competition in its fast-growing home market.
According to the sources in the company, the group is to set up distribution centres in 52 Chinese cities over the coming two years, Jack Ma, founder and chairman, told management in recent internal strategy meetings. The details of the service are not yet revealed.
The logistics service is designed for users of Taobao, an unlisted group associate which has a strong hold on China’s consumer e-commerce market.
According to Alan Hellawell, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, its platform for trade between consumers and its retail platform where merchants sell to consumers have a combined market share of 83.8%.
Purchases on Taobao already frame more than 70% of domestic couriers’ daily deliveries, and this has caused delays and patchy quality in distribution and delivery as the local logistics companies do not have the capacity to cope with the fast growth in e-commerce.
This trend has led to United Parcel Service, the US package delivery company, moving ahead with plans to establish a domestic service in China.
Alibaba, a business-to-business platform, has left rivals far behind in the consumer e-commerce sector after the launch of its Taobao site in 2003. Taobao has 230 million registered consumer users, compared with 90 million registered on Ebay. But the company is facing new competition. Baidu, China’s leading search engine launched an online mall website recently among with Rakuten, Japan’s largest online shopping mall operator.
As per Mr Hellawell research report, e-commerce revenues in China are still small; they are expected to grow at 42 per cent a year to US$229 billion, or 7.2 per cent of total retail sales, by 2014.
According to the officials, E-commerce in China is still in a nascent stage, but if Taobao wants to retain the market position it has now, it must up its game.
Mobile innovation growing at an unprecedented pace: Meeker
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The pace with which innovations in the mobile web world is evolving, it seems to be creating a history very soon. The recent comment has come from Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker while speaking at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. In her view, an “inflection point” has been hit by mobile web in its adoption rate leading to a 4,000 percent growth in mobile data traffic in the next four years.
E-commerce opportunities has been indicated as the likely beneficiary of that growth and when compared to desktop web, the mobile web emerges as a better option as it provides easier payment systems, such as direct carrier billing; content and subscription prices that are typically affordable at $5 or less.
part from this, “walled garden” proprietary content and commerce systems that reduce piracy and enhanced personalization features that make mobile services more useful to consumers are also provided by mobile web.
China Mobile confirms purchase of 20% stake in of Shanghai Pudong
China Mobile announced its entry into the share subscription agreement with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, through its wholly-owned subsidiary-China Mobile Group Guangdong Company Limited.
China Mobile is considered to be the world’s largest mobile operator in terms of number of subscribers. The company grabbed 2,207,511,410 A shares to be issued by SPD Bank by way of private placement, representing 20% of the issued shares of SPD Bank as enlarged by the subscription.
The selling price of each share was 18.3 RMB (about HK$ 20.50) which brought the total consideration for the subscription to 39.8 billion RMB (approximately HK$45.3 billion).
As a part of the deal, China Mobile has also entered into a strategic cooperation memorandum of understanding with SPD Bank (which will lead into a strategic cooperation agreement) to jointly work on development of mobile e-commerce services.
Airtel customers in Sri Lanka to appoint doctor on mobile
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Sri Lankan people can now book doctor’s appointment on phone if they are Airtel subscribers, both postpaid and prepaid. E-Channelling PLC, a Colombo Stock Exchange listed e-commerce Company powers the service on Airtel and it also powers a similar service on competing telco Dialog Telecom.
e-Channelling provides a centralized doctor’s appointment booking system for Sri Lanka’s private healthcare industry, allowing patients to book and pay for appointments via the Internet, mobile, banks and ICT centers called Nenasala on a single dial-in number, 225.
Nawaloka, Asiri Hospitals, Durdans, Apollo, Oasis, Ninewells, Park, Golden Key Eye and ENT, Ceymed and Royal Hospital in Colombo and Southern Hospital in Galle are some of the hospitals connected to e-Channelling and the average cost of an appointment is around Rs. 750
Research and Markets: China Mobile Limited – Has the World’s Largest Mobile Subscriber Base With Over 260 Million Users
Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c42991) has announced the addition of 2006 Asia Telco Company Profiles to their offering.
This report presents 12 profiles of selected major telecommunications companies in Asia. Each profile provides a descriptive overview of the business of the particular company as well as the latest available financial and operational statistics.
Topics Covered
1. BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LTD 2. CHINA MOBILE LIMITED 3. CHINA NETCOM GROUP 4. CHINA TELECOM CORPORATION 5. HUTCHISON WHAMPOA LTD 6. NTT DOCOMO 7. PACIFIC INTERNET LTD 8. PCCW LTD 9. SINGTEL 10. STARHUB PTE LTD 11. TELEKOM MALAYSIA 12. VIETNAM POSTS & TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION 13. GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS List of Tables & Exhibits
Summary
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) – India’s state-owned BSNL owns around 85% of the country’s copper wire local loop networks. The company is the largest telecom operator and the largest public sector enterprise in India, providing basic fixed-line services nationwide, except for the cities of Mumbai and Delhi. BSNL lost its exclusive rights to local access and national telephony in 2001. To compensate for reduced revenues, it built a national GSM network and entered the mobile sector, becoming one of the country’s biggest GSM operators. The company also entered the international telephony market in February 2003.
China Mobile Limited – China Mobile has the world’s largest mobile subscriber base (over 260 million) and the largest geographically contiguous mobile network. The company also has a strategic alliance with Vodafone. Listed on the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges since 1997, China Mobile has been facing competition from cheaper city-based PHS mobile services offered by the country’s two big fixed-line operators. In preparation for 3G services in China, the company submitted its application for a WCDMA licence in July 2005.
China Netcom Group – China Netcom Group is the second largest fixed-line operator in China. The group owns 30% of the country’s fixed-line infrastructure and serves 35% of its fixed-line customers. As part of its infrastructure it has a 360Gb/s IP backbone network and the Asia Netcom submarine cable network. Its services include PSTN and VoIP telephony, the ‘Little Smart’ PHS service, broadband Internet access, leased lines and VPNs. With an IPO in November 2004, it was the last of the major telcos in China to go public.
China Telecom Corporation Ltd – China Telecom Corporation Ltd is the principal provider of local, domestic and international voice and data services, dial-up and broadband Internet access in 20 of the 31 regions in China. The company commenced operations in September 2002, then went public on the HKSE and NYSE in November of that year, after the government split the original state-owned China Telecom into the China Netcom and the current China Telecom. Revenue growth engines have included the company’s PHS mobile service and its broadband Internet service. In mid-2005, China Telecom signed a landmark cooperative agreement with ZTE to provide the world’s largest fixed-line Next-Generation Network (NGN) in China covering 30 provinces.
Hutchison Whampoa Ltd – Hutchison Whampoa, a huge Hong Kong based conglomerate, has become heavily involved in telecommunications and is now a serious global player. As well as its Hong Kong business, it has a presence in a growing number of countries throughout Asia, Europe, Australasia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. Specialising in mobile communications, the company has invested billions in Third Generation (3G) licences and infrastructure and has been at the forefront of the global 3G roll-out.
NTT DoCoMo – Listed on the Tokyo, London and New York Stock Exchanges, NTT DoCoMo is controlled by NTT Corporation and is the mobile arm of the NTT group. DoCoMo is one of the largest mobile carriers in the world. In 2001, it became the first operator in the world to launch a 3G service. The company provides 2G and PHS mobile telephony, FOMA 3G mobile communications based on the WCDMA standard, i-mode mobile Internet access and email messaging platform and satellite mobile communications. DoCoMo’s 3G service surged in sales in 2004/05 after three years of weak sales. DoCoMo was determined to launch its 4G services during 2006, several years ahead of its competitors.
Pacific Internet Ltd – NASDAQ-listed Pacific Internet Ltd is one of the largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the Asia Pacific, providing Internet access and services in Singapore, Australia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, India and Malaysia. Pacific Internet provides end-to-end Internet services for corporate and residential customers, including dial-up access, DSL and wireless broadband access, leased line services, web hosting and e-commerce services. Listed on the NASDAQ, Pacific Internet Ltd no longer has the government-owned SembCorp Ventures as a major shareholder. SembCorp sold its remaining shares to an investment company, Kingsville Capital, in 2005. Some months later, Kingsville sold its shareholding to venture capitalist Vantage Corporation.
PCCW Ltd – PCCW has been Hong Kong’s dominant fixed-line telecommunications provider since it acquired the incumbent, Cable and Wireless HKT, in 2000. Since the takeover, the company has been struggling with debt and organisational restructuring in its effort to remain viable. In January 2005, China Netcom reached an agreement with PCCW on the purchase of a 20% stake in PCCW for US$1 billion.
Singapore Telecom (SingTel) – Listed on the Singapore and Australian Stock Exchanges, SingTel is majority owned by the Singapore government. SingTel is the leading provider of fixed-line, mobile and Internet services in Singapore. With a small, saturated and competitive home market, SingTel has significant offshore interests, which now contribute a majority of its revenue. Its main subsidiary is Optus in Australia. Others include Telkomsel in Indonesia, Globe Telecom in the Philippines, Bharti Telecom in India and AIS in Thailand. The company has significant investments in international submarine cable networks, satellite systems and data centres.
StarHub Pte Ltd – StarHub provides voice and data services over fixed, mobile and Internet platforms. After a period of strong growth, the company has passed MobileOne to take second position behind SingTel in the mobile market and is now closing in on the incumbent. StarHub has deployed an IP-based network to serve corporate customers and has been building a nationwide network to serve the residential market. In April 2001, the operator was awarded a 3G mobile licence and launched a 3G service in 2005. Singapore Cable Vision merged with StarHub in July 2002, renaming itself StarHub Cable Vision, providing cable TV and broadband services. The operator’s broadband base represented over 50% of the residential broadband market in Singapore by end-2005.
Source- http://www.redorbit.com
