www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Senegal has reportedly added 299,936 mobile phone subscribers in Q2′09 taking the total base to 6.28 million, up 5%. The mobile penetration in the country reached 51.63%, reports ARTP, the telecoms regulator. This is the lowest quarterly growth in a year, contrasting with 11.03% growth in Q1′09, 7.57% in the Q4′08, 6.12% in the Q3′08 and 14.15% in the Q2′08. At the end fo Q2′09, Sonatel Mobile (Orange Senegal) had 4.04 million subscribers (64.3%), followed by Millicom subsidiary Sentel with 2.11 million (33.6%) and Sudatel affiliate Expresso with 133,194 (2.1%). Of the total mobile subscriber base at June’09 end, 6.24 million accounted for prepaid mobile base while 42,313 were postpaid. The prepaid subscriber base grew by 5%, or 297,358 users in Q2, whereas postpaid subscribers rose by 6.49%, or
2,578 users.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mr. Chaiyod Chirabowornkul, Head of DTAC’s Postpaid Business Division, and Mr. Nattawat Woranopakul, Country Manager of HTC (Thailand) Company Limited, introduce the promotional campaign that provides the customers who buy HTC Snap smartphones with free SMS Internet SIM cards and the right to use the SIM cards free of charge for 1 year. The customers can send 200 short messages and have 20 hours of EDGE/GPRS connection per month free of charge. Customers are also eligible for lucky draws that offer free HTC Snap smartphones and free 1-year use of SMS Internet SIM cards if they inform 10 friends of the promotional campaign through forwarded emails or www.dtac.co.th. Five prizes will be presented every week. A total of 20 prizes worth over 300,000 baht will be given from August 17 to September 13, 2009. The list of lucky customers will be announced on www.dtac.co.th.
DTAC introduces SMS Internet SIM, the latest in its Second SIM series, especially as the most financially reasonable service for the customers whose demands focus on SMS and data. The service fee is very economical, 149 baht a month, for the transmission of 200 short messages and 20 hours of EDGE/GPRS connection monthly. For further service use, customers will pay only half the normal fees. The new SIM cards are launched in conjunction with HTC as customers are eligible for free HTC Snap smartphones and free 1-year use of SMS Internet SIM cards. (more…)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: QCell, the firm that received Gambia’s fourth mobile licence in August’08, has reportedy launched its services. The operator announced the launch of packages including 3G video calling services, available to both pre- and post-paid customers, mobile internet access, multimedia messaging and conferencing. Call Promotions will offer free on-net calls in the daytime and at weekends. The operator further aims to offer countrywide coverage in the immediate future.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Zain today announced the expansion of the One Network platform with the admission of Sierra Leone to the borderless connection. Following the move, Zain customers travelling to Sierra Leone will not be charged roaming fees to access voice and data services.
The admission of Sierra Leone to the One Network brings to 18 the total number of countries, spread over Africa and the Middle East, on the borderless platform.
The One Network service which was first introduced in East Africa two years ago, is a borderless mobile phone network that allows all prepaid and post-paid Zain customers when travelling in 18 countries in the Middle East and Africa to be treated as local customers allowing them to make calls and SMS at local rates and to receive calls and sms free-of-charge.
One Network also enables them to top-up their mobile phone while on travel with locally purchased scratch cards, which are widely available from more than one million sales outlets in any of the countries in which One Network is operational.
The service guarantees customers’ convenience since there is no need for pre-registration, no extra fees, no roaming deposits, and no complicated dialing formats while travelling. This reduces the cost of making telephone calls considerably, said Mr. Rene Meza, Zain Kenya Managing Director.
He said the process of bringing together all Zain operations under One Network was ongoing. In terms of country footprint, Zain is the third largest mobile operator in the world with a commercial presence in 24 countries.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (T-Mobile USA) today reported second quarter of 2009 results. In the second quarter of 2009, T-Mobile USA reported
OIBDA of $1.6 billion, up 16% compared to the first quarter of 2009 and up 1% from the second quarter of 2008, with an OIBDA margin of 34%.
Additionally, T-Mobile USA reported contract churn of 2.2%, down from 2.3% in the first quarter of 2009, and 325,000 net new customers in the second quarter of 2009.
“In 2009, we’re launching the best products and services we’ve ever brought to market,” said Robert Dotson, President and CEO, T-Mobile USA.
“In the quarter, we unveiled devices like our new T-Mobile myTouch 3G with Google. The myTouch will join other new T-Mobile 3G devices just in time for a powerful back-to-school offering available in even more locations with our newly announced RadioShack retail agreement. In the quarter, we also made steady progress in growing data revenues as more customers move to craved-for mobile internet and messaging services. And finally, in Q2 we also drove operational cost efficiencies that helped us deliver a much better margin for the quarter.”
“We see opportunities for new growth given the anticipated growing demand for innovative mobile internet and data services in the U.S. market,” said Rene Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. “In the area of cost control, I’m pleased with efforts by the U.S. team to drive a sequential increase in margin.”
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Entel has reported net profit of CLP33.3 billion (USD61.7 million) in Q2′09, down 6% from CLP35.4 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. For the first six months of the year earnings were CLP64.5billion, also down 6% from CLP68.4 billion a year ago. Total revenues for the quarter were CLP239 billion, up only 1% in comparison to CLP236 billion in 2Q08. Sales were affected by a 45% drop in mobile interconnection rates that came into effect earlier this year.
Entel’s CFO Felipe Ureta said the global economic crisis was responsible for a weaker economic environment, which in turn had impacted results. Nonetheless, he said he expects demand to pick up in the third quarter of the year. ‘Despite the 45% decline in mobile interconnection rates and a weaker domestic economic environment, consolidated revenues for the quarter increased 1%. This result was principally driven by higher revenues in the Chile wireline business, fueled by data and IT services,’ Ureta said. The telco is home to 5.95 million subscribers, up 2%, holds a market share of 39%. In the post-paid arena, total subscriber base reaches to 31% corresponding to 28% a year ago.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Etisalat, the UAE based mobile operator, has reportedly announced a promotion for its Location Based Service (LBS). Etisalat’s prepaid and postpaid subscriber will now be able to enjoy the service by receiving their locations free of charge until August 10.
Besides the location, customers can also explore nearest points of interest, such as shopping malls, ATMs, restaurants, lodging and entertainment options available in that location.
Subscribers can ask for details of a location through a list of help commands by sending text messaging “mlist” to 1333 and to find nearest places of interest, customers can rext message “nlist” to 1333.
LBS also enables subscribers to send maps of their location to family and friends.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Sprint Nextel Corp. today reported second quarter 2009 financial results that included consolidated net operating revenues of $8.1 billion, a net loss of $384 million and a diluted loss per share of 13 cents. The company generated Free Cash Flow* of $676 million in the quarter and $1.5 billion in the first half of 2009. As of June 30, 2009, the company had $4.6 billion of cash and cash equivalents and $1.5 billion of borrowing capacity available under its revolving bank credit facility, for a total liquidity of $6.1 billion.
In the second quarter, we made further progress on our efforts to enhance financial stability, improve the customer experience and reinvigorate the brand,” said Dan Hesse, Sprint Nextel CEO. “The widespread visibility surrounding our record-breaking June launch of the Palm® Pre™ handset gave us an unprecedented opportunity to showcase these improvements to customers as ‘a new Sprint.’ They saw a 3G network described by PC World magazine as the most reliable among competitors, key satisfaction and performance metrics in customer care improving for 18 straight months, advertising that won the top international award in Cannes, and a stable balance sheet with 2009 long-term debt maturities paid and enough cash on hand to cover maturities through 2011. (more…)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: RadioShack Corporation (NYSE: RSH) and T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announced a retail agreement to offer T-Mobile® products and services in more than 4,000 RadioShack stores across the U.S. and Puerto Rico beginning later this summer.
The relationship expands RadioShack’s postpaid wireless offerings, and enables RadioShack to offer its customers a selection of T-Mobile’s most innovative, in-demand handsets – including the highly anticipated T-Mobile® myTouchTM 3G with GoogleTM. For T-Mobile, the agreement nearly doubles the number of national retail partner stores offering its postpaid products and services nationwide, and makes RadioShack T-Mobile’s largest national retail partner. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. (more…)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: E-Plus Germany at present, reportedly holds a subscribers base of 18.2 million. The huge achievement is driven by segmented discounting strategy adopted by the operator. In fact, of the total base nearly 12 million subscribers are from the new brands which, beats the existing E-Plus contract total. Now the ARPU, for prepaid stands at 6 and post-paid at 27.