China Unicom Lifted by Mobile

China Unicom said that its telecommunications service revenue in the first quarter of 2010 was 38.62 billion Chinese yuan (5.65 billion US dollars), up by 4.6% from the same period of last year. It added that service revenue from its mobile business was 18.63 billion yuan, up by 11.9% from the same period of last year. source: China Unicom statement

Samsung Sees Share Gains

Samsung Electronics said it expects the global handset market to grow about 10% this year to almost 1.2 billion units and smartphones will account for 19% of the market in 2010, compared with 16% in 2009. Samsung said that its telecoms-related sales rose 5% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010 to 9.18 trillion Korean won (8.28 billion US dollars), boosted by an 8% rise in mobile handset sales to 8.57 trillion won. It also said it expects to continue to outperform the handset market in the second quarter of 2010. source: Samsung presentation

Acquisitions Shore Up Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel said that its revenues declined 2% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010 to 8.1 billion US dollars, thanks to "lower contributions from post-paid wireless service revenues and wireline revenues partially offset by increases from fourth quarter acquisitions, prepaid Boost Mobile service revenues and total equipment revenues." Sprint didn't say how far its revenue would have fallen without the acqusitions.


Sprint said its capex in the quarter was 419 million US dollars, compared to 291 million dollars in the first quarter of 2009, as it upped spending on its wireless networks. Sprint said it launched its 4G (WiMax) service in Houston in the first quarter of 2010 and Sprint 4G is now available in 28 markets covering nearly 40 million people. source: Sprint statement

France Telecom Rocked by Regulation

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France Telecom said that its revenues in the the first quarter of 2010 fell almost 3% year-on-year to 10.96 billion euros on a like-for-like basis. Stripping out the impact of regulation, France Telecom said that revenue would have fallen 0.3%

France Telecom also said that the underlying trend in its revenue in 2010 should be flat, but "expected regulatory measures" should impact revenue by almost 1 billion euros. It expects capex in 2010 to be around 12% of revenues, as it ramps up its fibre-to-the-home programme in France. source: France Telecom presentation

NTT DOCOMO Forecasts Further Falls

NTT DOCOMO said that it expects its revenues in the year to March 31, 2011 to fall 1.5% to 4.22 trillion yen (44.88 billion US dollars), following a fall of almost 4% in the previous year to 4.28 trillion yen. It anticipates that cellular service revenues will fall almost 3% in the year to March 31, 2011.

DOCOMO said that "packet" revenue from data services accounted for 46% of ARPU in the year ending March 31, 2010, compared with 42% the previous year. In the year to March 31, 2011, DOCOMO expects to spend 675 billion yen on capex (including 35 billion yen on LTE), compared with 687 billion yen the previous year. source: NTT DOCOMO presentation

Growth Slows for Bharti

Bharti Airtel said that its revenues in the quarter ending March 31 rose 2% year-on-year to 100.56 billion Indian rupees (2.25 billion US dollars). For the year ending March 31, Bharti said its revenues rose 7% year-on-year to 369.62 billion rupees. As of March 31, Bharti had 127.6 million customers on its network, up 36% year-on-year.

Bharti said that non-voice revenues accounted for 11.8% of its mobile revenues in the quarter ending March 31, compared with 9.3% in the same quarter a year ago. source: Bharti Airtel statement

Qualcomm Lifted by 3G Shipments

Last week, Qualcomm, the wireless chip maker, said it expects its revenue in the quarter ending June 28 to fall between 2% and 9% to between 2.5 billion and 2.7 billion US dollars.  But for the year ending September 27, Qualcomm now expects its revenue to rise between 0% and 6% to between 10.4 billion and 11 billion dollars.

In the quarter ending March 28, Qualcomm said its revenues were 2.66 billion dollars, up 8% year-on-year, "driven by healthy 3G device shipments and greater than expected demand for our chipsets." Qualcomm said there are now more than 1 billion 3G subscribers worldwide. source: Qualcomm statement

KDDI Forecasts Flat Year

KDDI, one of Japan's largest telecoms companies, forecast that its operating revenues will be flat in the year ending March 31, 2011, following a decline of almost 2% in the previous year to 3.44 trillion yen (36.55 billion US dollars). Operating revenues in its mobile business fell 2.5% in the year to March 31, 2010. KDDI said that it expects to cut capital spending in this financial year by 28 billion yen to 490 billion yen.  source: KDDI presentation

Verizon Shored Up By Wireless Data

Verizon said that its revenue rose just over 1% year-on-year in the first quarter to 26.9 billion US dollars on a like-for-like basis, lifted by a 4.4% rise in wireless revenue to 15.8 billion dollars. source: Verizon presentation

Ericsson Leans on North America

Ericsson, the world's leading supplier of mobile networks, said its sales declined 16% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010 to 45.1 billion Swedish kronor (6.3 billion US dollars) on a like-for-like basis.  Ericsson said that "voice related sales, such as 2G access and core, continued to decline. Increased mobile broadband (3G) sales, including radio, mobile backhaul and packet core, partly offset this impact." source: Ericsson statement

Nokia Ekes Out Revenue Rise

Nokia said that its net sales rose 1% year-on-year at constant currencies in the first quarter of 2010 to 9.52 billion euros, as a 7% increase in device and services sales offset a 12% fall in sales at network equipment unit Nokia Siemens. Nokia said its shipped 21.5 million converged mobile devices (smartphones and mobile computers) in the quarter, up 57% year-on-year.

Nokia expects its devices and services net sales to be between 6.7 billion and 7.2 billion euros in the second quarter of 2010, compared with 6.59 billion euros in the second quarter of 2009. Nokia expects Nokia Siemens Networks' net sales to be between 3.1 billion and 3.4 billion euros in the second quarter of 2010, compared with 3.2 billion euros in the same period of 2009. source: Nokia statement

Wireless Data Bolsters AT&T

AT&T said its revenues rose 0.3% year-on-year in the first quarter to 30.6 billion US dollars as a 10% rise in wireless service revenue offset a sharp decline in wireline voice revenue. source: AT&T presentation

iPhone Shipments Double

Apple said that it sold 8.75 million iPhones in the quarter ended March 27, 2010, representing 131% unit growth over the year-ago quarter. source: Apple statement

Slide Slows at Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson said it shipped 10.5 million units in the first quarter of 2010, a decrease of 28% compared to the same period last year, as the company streamlined its portfolio to focus on higher-end phones. The handset maker said sales for the quarter were 1.41 billion euros, a decrease of 19% year on year. source: Sony Ericsson statement

TeliaSonera Signals Organic Growth

TeliaSonera said its net sales increased 2.5% year-on-year in local currencies to 29.09 billion Swedish krona (4.07 billion US dollars) in the first quarter, boosted by a 9% increase in mobile revenues in Sweden. The group, which has operations in Europe and Asia, also reported that mobile broadband subscriptions increased 60% year-on-year, while data traffic doubled.

TeliaSonera said it still expects its net sales in 2010 to be "somewhat higher compared to 2009". It also forecast that its capex-to-sales ratio will be somewhat below 15% in 2010 compared with 12.8% in 2009. source: TeliaSonera presentation

China Mobile Claws in Customers

China Mobile said its revenue in the first quarter of 2009 rose almost 8% year-on-year to 109.09 billion yuan (16 billion US dollars) as its customer base climbed 16.6 million during the quarter to almost 539 million. source: China Mobile statement

Google Claims 60,000 Android Devices Sold Every Day

Google said last week that its smart phone operating system Android now runs 34 different devices from 12 manufacturers, adding that more than 60,000 Android devices are sold and activated every day. Google also said there are now more than 38,000 Android apps, up 70% quarter-over-quarter. source: transcript of Google earnings conference call

3G in China Lifts ZTE

Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE said its revenue rose 36% in 2009 to 8.82 billion US dollars, as its sales in China soared 74% to 4.45 billion dollars.  ZTE said it "emerged to become China’s largest supplier of 3G network equipment as we dominated in the network construction tenders of the three leading carriers." source: ZTE statement

ZTE also cited figures from iSuppli saying that it shipments of wireless terminals rose 33% to 60 million in 2009, including more than 40 million handsets and 20 million data cards in 2009. source: ZTE statement

HTC Beats Expectations

HTC, a leading supplier of smartphones running Android and Windows Mobile, said its revenues in the first quarter of 2010 grew 19% year-on-year to 37.7 billion Taiwanese dollars (1.19 billion US dollars). The Taiwanese company didn't elaborate on why revenues were better than its earlier expectations of  between 32 billion and 34 billion Taiwanese dollars. source: HTC statement

Apple Talks Up iPad

Apple said  it sold over 300,000 iPads in the U.S. in the tablet computer's first day on the market. These sales included deliveries of pre-ordered iPads to customers, deliveries to channel partners and sales at Apple Retail Stores. Apple also announced that iPad users downloaded over one million apps from Apple’s App Store and over 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day. source: Apple statement

Zain Grows in Tough Year

Pan-Africa and Middle East mobile operator Zain said its consolidated revenues grew almost 16% in 2009 to 2.32 billion Kuwaiti dinars (8.06 billion US dollars), as its customer base rose 14% to 72.5 million

Chairman of Zain Group, Mr Asaad Al Banwan said: “The 15.7% increase in consolidated revenues, 24% EBITDA and 33% EBIT increases reflect the efficient operational performance of Group’s mobile operations, despite the global financial crisis. The 2009 fiscal year was the toughest in the company’s history with the biggest challenge coming from the sharp volatility in several currencies, which effectively cost the group US$ 133 million." source: Zain statement

RIM Forecasts Strong Quarter

Research in Motion said it expects its revenue for the quarter ending May 29, 2010 to be in the range of 4.25 billion to 4.45 billion US dollars, compared with 3.42 billion dollars in the same quarter last year. That would represent an increase of between 24% and 30% year-on-year.

In the quarter ending February 27, RIM said revenue rose 18% year-on-year to 4.08 billion dollars, compared with growth of 35% across the fiscal year ending February 27.  Still, RIM said BlackBerry subscribers grew 65% over the prior fiscal year to over 41 million, with a record 4.9 million net new subscriber accounts added in the last quarter. source: RIM statement