Wireless Federation

Apple’s revenue to reach $200 bn mark soon (USA)

On 03.25.11, In Mobile, By Editor

A group of researches believe that Apple Inc. can keep posting sales growth of more than 50% in the next two years as a mobile applications boom fuels demand for devices such as the iPad.

According to researchers, Apple sold almost 15 million iPads in its debut year and more than 90 million iPhones in its four-year lifespan. Demand for the devices has spawned a market for downloadable apps that let users shop, work, play games and handle other tasks on the go. That in turn keeps customers buying Apple’s products, and puts the company on course for higher revenue than International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.

It is also expected that the company will be bigger than IBM next year, and they’ll be bigger than HP the year after that. At current growth rates, they’re going to be a $200 billion revenue company.

Hewlett-Packard had sales of $126 billion in the year that ended in October and IBM’s revenue was $99.9 billion last year, making them the largest technology companies, respectively, by sales. Apple ranks No. 1 by market capitalization.

China Telecom Q4 profits increase by 5%

On 03.22.11, In Mobile, By Editor

China Telecom Corp Ltd has reported an increase of about 5% in fourth-quarter net profit, helped by growing revenue from mobile and broadband services.

According to reports, China Telecom posted a net profit of US$482.97 million for the fourth quarter of 2010 and reported a net profit of US$2.4 billion for the full year.

China Telecom, a newcomer to China’s mobile market, operates the country’s largest fixed-line network and is aggressively promoting broadband over that channel.

Its shares went up by about 25% in 2010, beating a 5% advance by the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: Broadband Services • China • China Telecom • fixed-line network • fourth quarter • Net Profit • operator • Revenue

MTN Ghana subscription increases by 9%

On 03.21.11, In Mobile, By Editor

The annual report of MTN Ghana revealed that the company saw a 9% increase in subscribers as of December 2010, bringing the number to 8.7 million.

According to MTN, the increase was largely driven by the introduction of new price plans and a revision allowing subscribers to view discounts in monetary terms rather than percentages.

The report also revealed that MTN Ghana’s performance was encouraging, considering aggressive competition through headline tariff reductions. SIM card registration has also had an impact.

Revenue increased by 14% ahead of subscriber growth, mostly due to increases in airtime and subscription revenue. SMS revenue also increased significantly, contributing 5% to revenue.

According to Phuthuma Nhleko, MTN Group President and CEO, the Group’s strong operational performance was underpinned by a 22% increase in subscribers to 141.6 million from 116.0 million in the prior year, as well as improved efficiencies due to various cost initiatives and despite higher levels of mobile penetration, aggressive competition and increased regulatory requirements. MTN continued to maintain network quality and capacity and to offer attractive segmented value propositions to customers.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: Ghana • MTN • MTN Ghana • operator • Phuthuma Nhleko • President and CEO • Revenue • SIM card registration • SMS

Mobile applications download revenue in UK reached $452 mn in 2010

On 03.18.11, In Mobile, By Editor

According to a new research report, smartphone users in the UK downloaded over 860 million applications in 2010 with 105 million downloads counting for paid apps. Revenue reached US$451.69 million for the UK’s total paid application download.

The majority of phone users are still feature phone owners who are using mobile applications not as actively as smartphone users. In the years to come, this potential will be explored and will drive up market growth.

Most of the devices shipped in the UK run on Symbian OS, which is in line with the rest of Europe. Owners of these devices are rather passive in using mobile applications, compared to the activity level of other OS users. The most active community of app downloads and ad impressions are iOS holders.

Another interesting finding of the report is that young females show the highest dynamics of device adoption in 2010. With the current growth rate, female smartphone adopters will catch up with their male counterpart within a year. Even though UK smartphone user base still is slightly dominated by men, women are adapting/ taking on new smartphones models very quickly.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: Europe • IOS • Mobile • Revenue • UK

Qtel reports record 2010 revenue of US$7.5 billion

On 03.02.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) announced that 2010 full year Group revenue increased 13.1% to end 2010 at QAR27.2 billion (US$7.47 billion), as the Group’s consolidated customer base reached 74.1 million (FY 2009: 60.4 million).

Distributable earnings for 2010 including profits from the Nawras IPO taken directly to retained earnings increased by 21.3% to QAR3.4 billion (US$927.5 million). Earnings per Share (EPS) for 2010 grew 2.2% to QAR 19.69.

As part of the Group’s diversification strategy, Qtel has maintained solid operational and financial progress, successfully balancing the management of competitive pressure to maintain market share in mature markets with the ongoing development of operations in growth markets.

Key highlights of the year include the roll-out of Fibre-to-the-Home in Qatar, the successful implementation of a value-driven strategy by Indosat in Indonesia, strong revenue growth in Algeria leading to a first annual net profit for Nedjma, the successful defence of market leadership position in Tunisia, the launch of fixed line and home broadband services by Nawras in Oman and continued subscriber growth for Asiacell in Iraq.

The Group also successfully launched IPOs in Oman and Palestine, saw strong support for a 10-year Bond for Indosat and for the Qtel Group’s bond sale, which was more than ten times oversubscribed.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) provides a full range of telecommunications services in Qatar and across its presence in 17 countries. Our vision is to be among the top 20 telecommunications companies in the world by 2020 through expansion in both the MENA region and South East Asia.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: Algeria • Asiacell • consolidated customer base • Earnings Per Share • EPS • Fibre-to-the-Home • Indonesia • IPO • Iraq • MENA region • Mobile • Nawras • Nawras IPO • Oman • Palestine • Qatar • Qatar Telecom • Qtel • Revenue • South East Asia • Tunisia

TIM Brazil Q4 net profit raises

On 02.23.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Brazilian mobile phone Company, TIM Participacoes SA has announced that its net profit more than quadrupled in the fourth quarter as revenue increased and a non-recurring gain boosted the bottom line.

The Brazilian unit of Telecom Italia SpA reported fourth quarter net profit of $1.13 billion, increased from US$249.10 million a year earlier.

The company registered a one-time gain of US$838.32 million in the period due to a fiscal credit. TIM’s results include Intelig, a local long-distance operator acquired by TIM in 2009.

The company’s net revenue rose to US$2.33 billion from US$2.09 billion a year earlier.

According to TIM, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization,(EBITDA), rose 10.66%. The EBITDA margin ended the fourth-quarter at 30.6%, up from 30.4% in the fourth-quarter of 2009.

TIM ended the period as Brazil’s third-largest mobile phone operator with a total of 51 million clients and a market share of 25.1%. By comparison, in the year ago period, the company registered 41 million clients and a market share of 23.6%.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: Brazil • EBITDA • fiscal credit • fourth quarter • Mobile • on-recurring gain • Revenue • Telecom Italia SpA • Tim Participacoes SA

Swisscom profits decline on flat revenues (Switzerland)

On 02.18.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Swisscom has announced that its full-year revenues were essentially flat, with a 0.1% drop to US$12.42 billion – although at constant exchange rates, revenue would have increased by 2.1%. The Group’s Italian subsidiary Fastweb reported a 1.5% rise in net revenue in local currency to US$2.55 billion.

Net profit though came down by 7.1 percent to US$1.84 billion.

Excluding Fastweb, Swisscom increased net revenue by 2.3% to US$9.89 billion. The increase was largely attributable to the economic recovery, the acquisition of subsidiaries by Swisscom IT Services and growth in mobile communications and bundled products. As a result of the provision of US$107.33 million set aside in the first quarter of 2010 for the Fastweb VAT proceedings, operating income (EBITDA) fell by 1.9% to US$4.84 billion.

The number of mobile customers in Switzerland increased year-on-year by 226,000 or 4% to 5.8 million. In 2010 , Swisscom sold 1.38 million mobile devices, of which around half were smartphones. Revenue from mobile data traffic with Swisscom customers rose year-on-year by 33% to US$457.75 million. Overall price erosion in mobile communications in 2010 amounted to around 13% (price based on volume).

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: EBITDA • Exchange Rates • Fastweb • IT Service • Italian subsidiary • Mobile • Revenue • Swisscom • Switzerland • VAT

Mobile infrastructure equipment market to worth $42 billion by 2015

On 02.15.11, In Mobile, By Editor

The mobile infrastructure equipment market is forecast to resume positive growth in 2011 following the double-digit revenue decline in 2009 and single-digit decline in 2010. The overall mobile infrastructure market is expected to grow from $34 billion in 2010 to $42 billion in 2015.

According to analysts, the growing use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets will continue to challenge operators and vendors for years to come. They believe this increase in data demand will require operators to continue investing in their 3G/3.5G networks throughout the entire forecast period. While they have seen several successful LTE launches and we expect LTE revenue to see stronger growth, they believe WCDMA networks will carry the majority of the traffic throughout the forecast horizon. In addition, they anticipate some recurring 2G investments in fast-growing markets such as China and India to deal with the large 2G installed base.

The report shows that WCDMA revenues are expected to grow from $16 billion in 2010 to nearly $30 billion in 2015.LTE revenues are expected to grow from $350 million in 2010 to almost $7.7 billion in 2015.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: 2G • 3.5G • 3G • China • India • LTE • Mobile • mobile infrastructure equipment market • Revenue • WCDMA

Vodacom reports 5.6% increase in revenue (South Africa)

On 02.03.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Mobile telecommunications group Vodacom stated that group revenue and service revenue for the three months that ended December 31 increased by 5.6% and 4.8% respectively, with continued robust performance in South Africa and a 36.2% growth in group data revenue.

According to the company, group revenue and service revenue grew by 3.9% to and 4% respectively. Group customers increased by 2.2 million in the quarter, resulting in a total of 41.6 million group customers at December 31.

The South African operations posted revenue growth of 4.7% despite 15.6% decline in interconnects revenue.

As per the company, service revenue growth of 7.3%, excluding the impact of the drop in mobile termination rates, was supported mainly by the increasing contribution from data revenue and stronger customer and usage growth stimulated by focused promotional activity during the quarter.

Data revenue increased by 33.8% as demand for data services remained high. Data users increased by 780000 to reach 8.7 million at December 31, of which 2.1 million were active data bundle users.

Active smartphones on the network were up by 71.8% to 3.1 million and mobile connect cards were up by 52.2% to 1.0 million on the previous year

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: active data bundle • Mobile • Mobile telecommunications group • Revenue • Service Revenue • South Africa • USA • Vodacom

Micron 1Q profit falls by 24% (North America)

On 12.24.10, In Mobile, By Editor

Micron Technology Inc.’s fiscal first-quarter earnings chop down by 24%, but the company remained profitable even as prices for its computer memory chips slipped.

According to the company, it earned $155 million, 15 cents per share, during the three months ending Dec. 2. It had posted net income of $204 million in the year-ago period.

Revenue totaled $2.25 billion, up 29% from $1.74 billion last year.

President Mark Durcan and Chief Executive Officer Steve Appleton have been working to broaden Micron’s mix of products, to ease what have historically been stomach-turning swings from profit to loss when the volatile chip market dips.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: computer memory chips • first-quarter • Micron • Mobile • North America • President Mark Durcan and Chief Executive Officer Steve Appleton • Revenue