38.63 million Mobile phones shipped to India in Q2 with 35 new handset companies
According to a report by IDC India, fragmentation continues in India’s crowded mobile handsets market: new handset vendors now number 35, and accounted for 33.2% of shipments to the Indian market in the second quarter of 2010.
Nokia retained the number one mark in India, with a market-share of 36.3% of units shipped. Samsung was at number two, and unexpectedly, Chinese brand G’Five stood at number three player in India.
At the end of 2009, IDC revealed there were 28 new handset vendors in the market, accounting for 12.3% of shipments to India. In 2009, Nokia had accounted for 54.1% of units sold in India.
For the first half of 2010, apart from Nokia, Samsung and G’Five, Micromax, which recently raised money from Sequoia Capital India, is at number four, and BK Modi’s Spice at number five.
Anirban Banerjee, AVP (Research) at IDC India attributes this to significantly lower Average Selling Values (ASVs) in the Indian market, particularly attracting first time buyers from small towns and villages.
In 2010, expect bloodshed as margins drop, particularly at the lower end of the market, and prices are pushed behind by launch of more and more Android driven handsets at the higher level from Samsung, HTC and LG.
Jajah to be acquired by Telefonica O2 for USD 200 million
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Jajah, a VoIP services provider, will be acquired by Telefonica O2 in USD 200 million deal. Earlier, Techcrunch reported in the beginning of November that Microsoft and Cisco Systems were also looking to
buy Jajah for a price ranging from USD 200 million to USD 400 million.
Jajah introduced a VoIP service for mobile phone owners using internet in March 2006 and raised USD 28 million in VC funding from investors like Sequoia Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, Deutsche Telekom and Intel.
Currently, Jajah provides calling access to more than 200 destinations globally and serves over 25 million consumers and business callers in more than 122 countries.
Google acquires Admob for USD 750 Million.
Google has just announced that it has acquired AdMob, the mobile advertising company, for $750 million.
Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, DFJ and Northgate Capital will see a huge upside from this investment.
AdMob founder Omar Hamoui sent the following letter to customers:
Today we announced that AdMob has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google for $750 million. We are extremely excited about this new partnership and what it means for our advertiser, developer and publisher partners.
AdMob’s people, products and tools will continue to work to deliver successful campaigns for you and to effectively monetize your mobile traffic no interruptions. Our product and engineering teams will keep building great products for our customers. Our sales team will keep working with our thousands of advertisers to deliver successful campaigns. Our business development team will keep working to maximize ad revenue for the more than 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications that make up AdMob’s publisher network.
After our deal closes, AdMob will work with Google to accelerate the pace of innovation in mobile and do an even better job for you. We believe this deal will benefit our advertisers, developers and publishers by:
- Increasing our investment in building innovative and engaging ad units across platforms and to further improve targeting and tracking.
- Building even more powerful relevance and optimization capabilities, and more powerful technology and tools to monetize mobile traffic.
- Increasing the effectiveness of display advertising on mobile devices by leveraging Google sales team, infrastructure and relationships.
- Improving the already high level of service and support we deliver to our advertisers, developers and publishers.
Google has written its own blog post announcing the Admob deal:
iPhone and Android users browse the Internet more often than anyone else [Morgan Stanley], contributing to Google’s 5x mobile search growth over the past two years..
And a quarter of these same iPhone and Android users spend nearly 90 minutes per day using applications on their devices [AdMob]
Google has also shown in its press section, what it has currently vis-a-vis where admob is popular today:
Google -Admob
As Google points out, the deal follows similar acquisitions by traditional online companies looking to move into mobile: AOL bought Third Screen Media more than two years ago, Yahoo picked up Actionality and Microsoft bought ScreenTonic.
Ruckus Wireless Selected by Belgacom to Provide Wire-Free Belgacom TV
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 11 /PRNewswire/ — Ruckus Wireless, credited with pioneering “smart Wi-Fi technology and systems,” today announced that it has been selected by Belgium’s national telecom provider, Belgacom, to supply in-home “smart Wi-Fi” systems to support its popular digital broadband TV service — Belgacom TV.
The Ruckus smart Wi-Fi system, MediaFlex NG (see related October 9 release), is the-first-of-its-kind in-home wireless platform that uses patent-pending technology to increase the reliability of Wi-Fi signals, extend their range and automatically steer them around interference in real-time.
Based on the Ruckus MediaFlex system, Belgacom’s new in-home Wi-Fi service is now available to Belgium’s four million households, giving consumers the freedom to watch television anywhere in their home over standard Wi-Fi, while using the Internet and other digital broadband services.
Belgacom is one of Europe’s leading and fastest growing IPTV providers, offering IPTV services to more than 73,000 customers at the end of June. Over the next 18 months, Belgacom expects to significantly ramp its subscriber base.
Belgacom is leveraging advances in Wi-Fi technology, developed by Ruckus Wireless, to create a new model for delivering, enabling and distributing television services within the home. The Ruckus MediaFlex system lets Belgacom give consumers the opportunity to purchase and install the system when and where they want, thereby avoiding the installation costs and delays typically associated with turning on a television service
“The market is demanding a better model for enabling new digital services within the home — one that is as revolutionary as the services themselves — and this is it,” said Robin Belliere, product manager of Residential Terminals at Belgacom.
“Consumers simply don’t want to wait for installers to enable their television service or rewire their homes, and why should they? Instead of having to arrange, pay and wait for a technician, consumers can now simply purchase the Ruckus MediaFlex system when they want to enable TV and install the system anywhere in a matter of minutes,” Belliere concluded.
According to Belgacom, approximately 60 percent of its triple play customers choose self-installation. The Ruckus MediaFlex system is pre-configured for Belgacom and its customers and can be installed in a matter of minutes. Belgacom will continue to offer a wired option that requires a technician to come to the home to install Ethernet cabling over the course of two to three hours.
Belgacom is offering consumers the Ruckus MediaFlex system at a one-time nominal cost in lieu of cable installation. It is also making the system available in some 150 Belgacom retail and dealer outlets.
“The technical innovations we’ve made with Wi-Fi are enabling a whole new era in multimedia distribution and consumption within the home,” said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. “Belgacom is clearly capitalizing on these technology advances to provide consumers with a better in-home experience while cutting costs and increasing revenue at the same time.”
Belgacom TV, Better than Chocolate
Belgacom has offered IPTV services through Belgacom TV since June 2005 throughout Belgium. Belgacom delivers more than 70 IPTV channels through its “Classic +” service including national and a range of international channels for euro 9.95 per month. In addition, Belgacom TV offers the “Select” package of 15 new channels for euro 14.94 per month as well as on-demand services with more than 300 movies available from euro 2 to euro 5 per movie.
Belgacom provides IPTV, and other triple play services, over an advanced copper/fiber infrastructure that delivers 9 to 15 Mbps of capacity over ADSL2+ and VDSL technology. Over this infrastructure, IPTV is multicast to consumers using MPEG-2 compression technology. Each MPEG-2 IPTV channel consumes approximately four megabits of broadband capacity.
Solving the Last 30 Meters
The Ruckus MediaFlex system is being used by Belgacom to solve a prevalent problem facing broadband providers around the world — the last 30 meters. Advances in data compression and high speed broadband delivery has created new methods through which multimedia services are being delivered to consumers. Content and service providers have begun using high-speed computer networks to deliver digital voice, video and data services over the broadband connection coming into consumer homes.
However, moving this digital information around the home requires a reliable and high-speed computer network. And while Wi-Fi is the widely preferred consumer technology of choice within the home, it was never developed to be reliable enough to meet the stringent requirements for real-time, streaming applications such as IPTV. This has now changed.
Unlike best-effort consumer Wi-Fi products, the Ruckus MediaFlex system is a next generation carrier-class Wi-Fi system designed to reliably transmit flicker-free digital TV throughout the home. It uses a sophisticated smart antenna and quality of service system that steers Wi-Fi signals around interference and obstacles in real time while giving providers the ability to remotely monitor and manage the customer Wi-Fi environment — something heretofore not possible.
About Ruckus Wireless, Inc.
Founded in June 2004 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Ruckus Wireless is credited with developing the first “smart Wi-Fi” system that enables reliable transmission of digital video over standards-based in-home wireless networks. The company’s patent-pending hardware and software technologies improve the performance, range and predictability of wireless networks in the home, extending all the benefits of Wi-Fi to consumers’ television viewing and enabling service providers to deliver ‘triple play’ services of voice, video and data over one broadband connection. The company, named to the 2006 “Fast 50″ by Fast Company magazine and the 2006 Red Herring 100, has raised approximately $30 from top investors including Sequoia Capital, Motorola Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, T-Online Venture Fund, WK Technology Fund and Investor AB. Ruckus Wireless is led by Selina Lo, CEO, named in 2005 by Light Reading magazine as “Industry Statesman of the Year” and Dominic Orr, Chairman of the Board. For more information, visit the company’s web site at http://www.ruckuswireless.com .
The Belgacom Group [Euronext Brussels: BELG] (Belgacom S.A. and its subsidiaries) is the first telecommunications company in Belgium and a market leader in many fields, particularly in wholesale and retail fixed line services, mobile communications, Internet and broadband data transmission services. At the end of the fiscal year on 31 December 2005, the Group reported a total revenue of EUR 5,696 million and a net operating profit before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of EUR 2,098 million; including non recurring items. More info: www.belgacom.be .
Source- http://biz.yahoo.com
