ZTE sold 2 mn phones in 2010 (France)
ZTE reportedly sold 2 million handsets in France 2010, doubling its year-earlier volume, and is expected to sell 3 million units this year.
The company currently has a slightly over 5% share of the French mobile phone market. It sells the Link and Blade smartphones and 3G dongles through mobile operator Bouygues Telecom, while the two bigger mobile networks, Orange France and SFR, put their own brands on ZTE-manufactured devices.
ZTE is also going to launch new smartphones in May and a light 3G tablet after the summer. Orange is also testing a new customer box from ZTE. The Chinese company would like to develop its network equipment business in Europe, where its rival Huawei has succeeded in gaining a foothold.
ZTE, which does provide network equipment to France Telecom, but only for overseas territories, has two research centres in Europe. One in Paris works on value added services and one in Stockholm focuses on radio access technologies. ZTE has signed 15 LTE contracts around the world and its regional director for Western Europe, Lin Cheng, anticipates the China’s TDD technology will spread in Europe for LTE, notably because it can support more mobile traffic than FDD at the same cost.
Smartphones to get stylish with embedded timepieces
With the changing focus from wristwatches to smartphones to tell the time, the watch-making industry is being forced to get smart and high-tech to recapture consumers.
Baselworld, industry’s biggest watch and jewellery fair is not just centering on diamond-encrusted mechanical watches with complex movements, but an increasing number of timepieces that combine with the smartphone.
Some watchmakers unveiled luxury phones that incorporate mechanical watches, others were featuring watches with touchscreens. Japanese digital watchmaker Casio premiered watches that are able to communicate with smartphones.
According to Fabrice Gonet, designer from Slyde Watch SA, many young people don’t wear watches anymore these days. They use their mobile phones to tell time.
Gonet and his business partners decided to create an electronic wristwatch with a touchscreen, which lets people download photos, personalize their watch face, although it does not have the telephone function. He explained that they thought of making this watch to recreate the link between horlogery and young people.
Ulysse Nardin, a Swiss luxury watchmaker, launched what it claimed is the world’s first luxury hybrid smartphone, integrating a mechanical watch rotor into the mobile phone.
The automatic rotor also creates energy to provide additional power to the phone.
Bobby Yampolsky, co-founder of UN Cells which make the phones for Ulysse Nardin, admitted that it is insufficient to act as the sole power supply for the phone.
According to him, if you wind it for four, five minutes you can make about a 30 second phone call or a few texts.
However, Yampolsky believes that such hybrid phones are the way forward. He Casio, a long-term player in the watch industry that championed the quartz technology which almost brought about the demise of the mechanical watch, believes that there is still a place for the wristwatch.
This year, it introduced a watch that communicates with the mobile phone.
Casio’s Managing Director, Hiroshi Nakamura explained that if the mobile phone rings during a meeting, a tap of the watch would stop the ringing.
Likewise, an email arriving on a smartphone would also prompt a message on the wristwatch that a mail has been received.
As per Nakamura, you don’t always keep a mobile phone in your hands; you’ll put it in your bag. So it’s easier when you’re receiving a call to just tap on the watch. If you have a bluetooth watch and a smartphone then you don’t have to adjust the time when you’re travelling.
Casio’s latest watch will be available by the end of the year, with a launch due in the domestic market before broadening to other markets.
Honduras operators see great opportunities in mobile data
A new research report has revealed that despite the increasing competition in the mobile market, Honduras operators will observe opportunities in growing data usage along with the expected migration from basic handsets to text-friendly devices and smartphones.
As per researchers, despite recent political problems in Honduras, the telecom market has continued expanding, fueled by advances in mobile penetration and broadband Internet. In 2010, the telecom market generated $1.36 billion and will expand at a CAGR of 5.1 percent over the next five years.
Mobile data will more than double its share of total revenue, expanding from $182 million in 2010 to $444 million in 2015; it is also expected that fixed and mobile broadband will be the main contributors.
Most of the data revenue in Honduras comes from messaging. The lack of a strong 3G base for market leader Tigo and the relatively low sophistication of the market have made other services a small piece of the overall market. Mobile broadband has started to gain traction in Honduras, and by the end of 2011, Pyramid anticipates around 218,000 subscriptions.
Brightpoint concludes C20 Mobile acquisition(SE Asia)
Brightpoint, a mobile handset distributor has completed its acquisition of the business and assets of smartphones, tablets, mobile devices and accessories distributor C20 Mobile and C20.
The acquisition was made by Brightpoint Singapore, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brightpoint. With the acquisition of C20, Brightpoint enhances its position as a mobile device distributor and supply chain services provider in the Singapore market and this provides a base to grow within South East Asia.
Larger smartphone screens attract larger group of people (USA)
A new research has revealed that US consumers are willing to give up room in their pockets and handbags to gain a richer media experience on their mobile devices. The U.S. market share for iPhones and other smartphones with screen sizes between 3.5 inches and 3.9 inches have remained steady, but smartphones with the largest screens (4 inches or larger) have grabbed market share from devices with screen sizes that are less than 3.5 inches.
Based on the latest reports, smartphones with 4-inch-or-larger screens, like Samsung’s Galaxy S, HTC’s EVO 4G and Motorola’s Droid X, which debuted in the second quarter (Q2) of 2010, quickly grew to encompass 24% of the market by Q4 2010. The market share for iPhones and other smartphones with screen sizes between 3.5 inches and 3.9 inches increased 2 percent over the prior year’s Q4; while the market share of smartphones with screens smaller than 3.4 inches, declined from 63 percent in Q4 2009 to just 36% of the smartphone market in Q4 2010.
The five best-selling handset models in 2010 that had screen sizes of 4 inches or larger were as follows:
- HTC EVO 4G
- Motorola Droid X
- Samsung Fascinate
- Samsung Captivate
- Samsung Vibrant
According to researchers, the explosion in Web and video content available for smartphones has caused consumers to rethink their phones’ sizes. Larger displays offer a richer media experience, as well as a roomier surface for on-screen keyboards. Handset vendors are continuing to push the envelope of pocket real estate to complement the video capabilities of 4G handsets.
While men still make up the largest share of consumers purchasing smartphones with the largest screen sizes, women are increasingly likely to buy them. In Q2 2010, just 30% percent of large-screen smartphone purchasers were women, but by Q4 2010, women represented 40% of large-screen smartphone sales.
Vodafone UK rolls out Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, Arc
Vodafone UK has announced that its customers can now pre-order the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and Arc Android smartphones before the launch scheduled on April 1.
The Xperia Play will be free on US$57.30 for 24-month price plans which including 900 minutes, unlimited texts and 750MB of mobile data, as well as up to 25MB of data roaming in selected European countries when ordered online.
The first 1,000 people to pre-order the device through the Vodafone website will also receive a free Sony Ericsson DK300 multimedia docking station.
The Xperia Arc will be free on US$49.11 for 24-month price plans and will include 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of mobile data. Both the Arc and Play run on Gingerbread (Android 2.3). Customers who pre-order either device in March will also receive free Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls for the life of the contract.
AT&T to acquire T-Mobile USA
AT&T, the nation’s largest carrier has agreed to buy T-Mobile USA, the nation’s fourth-largest carrier for $39 billion.
The merger would create the largest cellular phone carrier in the country as consumers increasingly flock to smartphones and tablets to access the Internet.
The unexpected move follows a recently announced plan by T-Mobile to reorganize and restructure to reverse its poor performance. The carrier’s subscriber base dropped in 2010 to 33.73 million from 2009′s 33.79 million and revenues fell to $16.55 billion from $16.76 billion. Operating profits also fell in 2010.
T-Mobile was also known to face constraints in expanding its 3G/4G network to take on more 3G/4G subscribers because it had fewer spectrums than other carriers.
AT&T on Sunday had announced that its board and that of Deutsche Telekom had approved the deal, which includes $25 billion in cash and the rest in AT&T stock.
According to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, this transaction represents a major commitment to strengthen and expand critical infrastructure of our nation’s future. The merged company would bring wireless access to more rural and underserved areas sooner than the separate companies would.
Specifically, AT&T promised to provide 4G wireless services to 95% of the population by building more cell towers across the country. That’s 46.5 million more consumers than the company originally planned to provide with 4G.
The combined company would have about 130 million users. Economists and policymakers have been looking to mobile Internet services as a driver of future growth.
The deal will be closely examined by federal regulators because a merger would have consequences for many consumers.
Key lawmakers, including Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), head of the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee stated that the group would closely scrutinize the deal for implications on consumer wireless prices and quality of service.
Consumer advocacy groups immediately criticized the merger. They pointed to consistently higher mobile phone bills each successive year. Carriers are also switching billing to tiered data plans that consumer groups fear will lead to higher costs.
T-Mobile has offered some of the lowest service prices in recent years.
The deal would have to be approved by antitrust regulators at the Justice Department and the FCC, which oversees the transfer of wireless licenses.
According to Deutsche Telekom AT&T has the right to increase the portion of the purchase price paid in cash by up to $4.2 billion with a corresponding reduction in the stock component.
Although the planned purchase is logical for AT&T because both carriers’ networks use GSM and W-CDMA HSPA + technology, T-Mobile’s 3G and 4G phones operate in the 1.7/2.1GHz bands, whereas AT&T’s 3G/4G phones operate in the 850/1900MHz bands. Merging the networks will create challenges in migrating consumers from one set of bands to another.
HTC sales may reach TWD 100 bn in Q1
HTC is expected to see its first-quarter sales break the TWD 100 billion mark, reports the Cens. HTC registered TWD 32.106 billion in consolidated sales in February, up 212.33 percent year-on-year but down 8.3 percent from the preceding month. The company scored TWD 67.121 billion in consolidated sales in the first two months of this year, up 212.91 percent from a year earlier. Due to the sale of its newly launched Desire-series smartphones, HTC has seen shipments in January and February surpass market expectations. Earlier, HTC was expected to ship 8.5 million smartphones with sales reaching TWD 94 billion in the first quarter of this year, up 157 percent and 14 percent year-on-year, respectively. The company`s second-quarter sales will keep trending upward as it has constantly launched new machines and the ‘Flyer’-series tablet computers since the beginning of the second quarter. HTC will focus its deployment in the Asian market this year. HTC Asia-Pacific vice president CL Tung anticipated his company will see strong dynamics in sales of smartphones this year as consumers are gradually switching to use smartphones from conventional multi-functional ones.
Nokia sale grows by 14% in Russia
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has revealed that company’s revenues in Russia totaled US$2.44 billion in 2010, up 14.1% year-on-year.
Russia is currently Nokia’s fourth-largest market, surpassed only by China, India and Germany. Nokia’s market share in smartphones sold grew by 10.5 percentage points in Russia in 2010, to 73.4%.
