Samsung Hit by Handset Price Competition

Despite a 22% increase in handset shipments to 63.8 million, Samsung Electronics said that sales in its mobile telecoms division fell 5% year-on-year in the second quarter to 8.45 trillion Korean won (7.12 billion US dollars). Samsung said that the average selling price of its handsets fell due to "intensified price competition and product mix adjustment." source: Samsung presentation

NTT DOCOMO Ekes Out Some Growth

NTT DOCOMO said that its operating revenues in the quarter ending June 30th rose 0.4%  year-on-year to 1.09 trillion Japanese yen (12.6 billion US dollars) - the first increase in three years. Cellular service revenues actually fell 2% to 864 billion yen, but the Japanese operator sold 6% more handsets that in the same quarter of 2009.

DOCOMO said the growth of its ARPU from packet data services is accelerating thanks to an aggressive promotion. It added that it now has 5 million users for its i-concier service, which provides subscribers with real-time information about travel, weather and local amenities. By August 2010, the operator plans to roll out a system that will enable small businesses to easily deliver content through the service. source: NTT DOCOMO presentation

Motorola's Handset Sales Down

Sales in Motorola's handset division fell 6% year-on-year to 1.72 billion US dollars in the second quarter of 2009 as unit shipments fell from 14.8 million to 8.3 million. But smartphone shipments totalled 2.7 million compared with zero a year earlier.

At a group level, Motorola's sales slipped slightly to 5.41 billion dollars in the quarter, bolstered by rising revenues in its enterprise mobility solutions division. source: Motorola presentation

Regulation Restrains France Telecom

Dragged down by adverse regulation, France Telecom said its revenues fell 1.7% year-on-year, on a comparable basis, in the second quarter to 11.19 billion euros. Falling revenues in Europe were partially offset by growth in France Telecom's Middle East and African operations.

France Telecom reiterated its forecast that the underlying trend in its revenues in 2010 will be flat, but expected regulatory measures will cost the company almost 1 billion euros in sales. It also forecast that 2010 capex will come in at around 12% of revenue. source: France Telecom presentation

Telefonica's Growth Accelerates

Telefonica achieved organic year-on-year growth in revenues of aproximately 3% in the second quarter of 2010 to 15.12 billion euros, as the Madrid-based group's mobile base rose almost 10% in the year to the end of June to 211 million connections. Mobile broadband connections were up almost 85% year-on-year to 17 million.

Telefonica said its Spanish business saw a 3.4% decrease in revenues, in comparable terms, in the first half of the year, while its Latin American business registered organic growth of 6.2% and Telefónica Europe’s year-on-year revenue growth was 6.5% in organic terms and excluding regulatory effects, with "healthy growth in the UK and German markets."

Teleconica said first-half capex (excluding spectrum acquisitions) totalled 2.92 billion euros (+0.9% year-on-year in organic terms and +5.1% in reported terms). source: Telefonica statement

LG's Handset Sales Suffer Sharp Fall

Hit by falling handset prices, LG Electronics said revenues in its mobile communications division fell 29.5% year-on-year to 3,619 billion Korean won (3.02 billion US dollars) in the second quarter of 2010. LG said its handset shipments rose 2% year-on-year to 30.6 million units.  The Korean company expects new models, including smartphones, to lift its revenues in its home market and in North America in the third-quarter. source: LG Electronics presentation

Fixed-Line Sales Lift KDDI

Boosted by rising sales in its fixed-line division, Japanese operator KDDI said that its operating revenues rose 1.4% year-on-year to 866 billion yen (10.01 billion US dollars) in the quarter ending June 30th, 2010. Rising mobile data revenues were offset by falling mobile voice revenues leaving the mobile business growing 0.1% year-on-year.

Aiming to cut capital spending by 5% in the year to March 31, 2011, KDDI cut capex by 18% year-on-year to 110.4 billion yen in the quarter ending June 30th. source: KDDI presentation

Comcast Ramps Up Revenues

Lifted by double-digit increases in high-speed Internet and voice revenues, Comcast said that its total revenues rose 6.1% year-on-year in the second quarter to 9.53 billion US dollars. Capital expenditure was flat at 1.1 billion dollars and the cable company forecast that total capex in 2010 will be lower than in 2009. source: Comcast presentation

Sprint Shrinks Only Slightly

Sprint Nextel said that its operating revenues fell 1% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2010 to 8.03 billion US dollars, as its wireline and postpaid wireless service revenues declined. It said the impact of these declines was partially offset by the impact of fourth quarter 2009 acquisitions, prepaid Boost service revenues and total equipment revenues.

Sprint said it gained approximately 111,000 net subscribers in the second quarter, taking its total base to 48.2 million. Sprint's capital expenditures were 437 million dollars in the quarter, compared to 321 million dollars in the second quarter of 2009.. source: Sprint Nextel statement

KPN Squeezed at Home

With its traditional telephony business in Holland under continued pressure from competition and regulation, KPN said that its group revenues fell 1.7% year-on-year in the second quarter to 3.35 billion euros. Boosted by growth in Germany, revenues in KPN's mobile businesses outside Holland rose 1.4% year-on-year.

KPN's group capex in the second quarter was 380 million euros - down 1.6% on the second quarter of 2009. KPN reiterated its forecast that 2010 revenues will be in line with 2009 sales of 13.5 billion euros, excluding the impact of disposals. source: KPN presentation

Double Digit Growth for América Móvil

Pan-Americas mobile operator América Móvil said its second quarter revenues were up 11.9% year-on-year to 100.9 billion pesos (7.94 billion US dollars), buoyed by a rise in data revenues of 41.6%. The Mexico City-based operator added 4.9 million new wireless subscribers in the quarter to finish June with 211.3 million wireless customers in the Americas, 11.0% more than at the end of June 2009. source: América Móvil statement

Verizon's Sales Slip Slightly

Dragged down by a 3.3% fall in wireline revenues, Verizon Communications said its total operating revenues were 26.8 billion US dollars in the second-quarter of 2010, a decrease of 0.3% compared with the second quarter of 2009. Wireless data revenues increased to 34.5% of all wireless service revenues, up from 29.3% in the second quarter 2009.

Verizon said its wireless division had 92.1 million customers at the end of the quarter, after adding 1.4 million total net customers in the quarter and removing a net 2.1 million customers in connection with divestitures and conforming adjustments related to the Alltel acquisition. Verizon Wireless also said it had 7.7 million “other connections” at the end of the quarter -- such as machine-to-machine, eReaders and telematics, bringing total wireless connections to 99.7 million.

Verizon's capital expenditures totaled 4.2 billion dollars in the second quarter of 2010, down 3.6% from the second quarter of 2009. However, the U.S. operator said full-year 2010 guidance for capital expenditures remains at 16.8 billion to 17.2 billion dollars. source: Verizon statement

iPhone Helps AT&T Eke Out Growth

Lifted by 10% growth in wireless service revenue, AT&T said that its revenues grew 0.6% year-on-year in the second quarter to 30.8 billion US dollars. The U.S. operator added 1.6 million wireless customers in the quarter, taking the total to more than 90 million.

AT&T said it activated 3.2 million iPhones in the quarter, the most quarterly iPhone activations ever. It added that approximately 27% of those activations were for customers who were new to AT&T.

The company said that capital expenditures in the quarter totaled 4.71 billion dollars (up 22% year-on-year), including a nearly 60% increase in wireless-related capital investment versus the year-earlier quarter, as "AT&T aggressively deploys next-generation wireless broadband networks." source: AT&T statement

Vodafone Begins Growing Again

Vodafone said that its service revenues grew 1.1% year-on-year on an organic basis in the quarter ending June 30 to 10.6 billion British pounds (16.23 billion US dollars) driven by a 25% increase in data revenue to 1.2 billion pounds and 14% growth in revenues in India and 24% growth in Turkey. Vodafone cut capital spending by almost 12% year-on-year to 1 billion pounds. source: Vodafone presentation

Ericsson Hit By Component Shortages

Ericsson said that its sales declined 15% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis to 48 billion Swedish krona (6.57 billion US dollars) in the second quarter, as the market for voice-related equipment, such as 2G access and circuit switched core, continued to decline. But the Stockholm-based company estimates that "continued industry component shortages and supply chain bottlenecks"  had a negative impact on sales in the quarter of between 3 and 4 billion krona.
 
Ericsson said that mobile broadband networks are being built-out across the world, but HSPA still only covers 25% of the global population. Ericsson's measurements in live networks found that global mobile data traffic almost doubled between the first quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010.
 
Ericsson estimated that global mobile subscriptions increased by 190 million in the second quarter with GSM/GPRS/EDGE accounting for 125 million of these new subscriptions and WCDMA for 40 million.Ericsson estimates there are now 245 million HSPA connections worldwide, compared with 474 million fixed broadband connections at the end of the first quarter. Ericsson said three countries, China, US and Japan, account for almost 50% of global fixed broadband subscriptions. source: Ericsson statement

Vodacom Growth Curbed by Regulation

Vodacom, one of Africa's leading mobile operators, said that its group revenue increased 3% year-on-year in constant currencies to 14.03 billion South African rand (1.88 billion US dollars), boosted by a 43% increase in data revenue. Vodacom said its growth was curbed by a reduction in regulated mobile termination rates in South Africa, which cut its revenue by approximately 393 million rand in the quarter. source: Vodacom statement

Qualcomm Expects Return to Growth

Citing healthy growth in sales of CDMA-based devices, wireless chip maker Qualcomm said it now expects its revenues to be between 2.67 billion and 2.93 US billion dollars in the quarter ending September 27th, which would amount to a year-on-year rise of up to 9% on a like-for-like basis - better than the company had forecast earlier. In the quarter ending June 27th, Qualcomm's revenues fell 2% year-on-year to 2.71 billion dollars. source: Qualcomm statement

Falling Prices Hold Back Nokia

Nokia said its revenues fell 4% year-on-year at constant currencies to 10 billion euros in the second-quarter of 2010, as sales in its Nokia Siemens Networks division fell 11% at constant currencies. Nokia said its unit shipments of devices climbed 8% year-on-year to 111.1 million units in the quarter, but the average selling price slipped to 61 euros compared with 64 euros in the second quarter of 2009.

Nokia said the average selling price of its converged mobile devices (smartphones and mobile computers) fell 21% year-on-year to 143 euros, but unit shipments rose 42% year-on-year to 24 million. Nokia expects its Devices & Services net sales to be between 6.7 billion and 7.2 billion euros in the third quarter of 2010, compared with 6.9 billion euros in the third quarter of 2009.

“We are [...] encouraged by the solid second quarter performance of our Mobile Phones business, helped by an improving line-up of affordable models," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's CEO: "We believe that the Nokia N8, the first of our Symbian^3 devices, will have a user experience superior to that of any smartphone Nokia has created. The Nokia N8 will be followed soon thereafter by further Symbian^3 smartphones that we are confident will give the platform broader appeal and reach, and kick-start Nokia’s fightback at the higher end of the market.” source: Nokia statement

Asia Drives Growth at Telenor

Lifted by 13% organic revenue growth in its Asian operations, Telenor said that its revenues grew 4.7% year-on-year in the second-quarter on an organic basis to 25.18 Norwegian krone (4.03 billion US dollars). Capex was down very slightly to 2.98 krone.

Telenor said that it now expects organic revenues to grow between 3% and 5% in 2010 and capex to be between 12% and 13% of sales, compared with its previous forecast of between 13% and 14%. source: Telenor presentation

Apple Ups the Ante

Brushing off the iPhone 4's reception problems, Apple reported record revenues of 15.7 billion US dollars in the quarter ending June 26th, up 61% on the same quarter a year earlier. Apple expects revenue in the current quarter to be about 18 billion dollars, up 82% year-on-year.

In the quarter ending June 26th, Apple sold 3.47 million Macs, 33% up year-on-year, 8.4 million iPhones, representing 61% growth, 9.41 million iPods, a decline of 8%, and 3.27 million iPads.

“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We have amazing new products still to come this year.” source: Apple statement

TeliaSonera Bouyed by Eurasia and Mobile Data

Boosted by double-digit revenue growth in Eurasia, TeliaSonera said that its net sales in local currencies and excluding acquisitions rose 3.3% in the second quarter to 26.96 billion Swedish krona (3.66 billion US dollars). TeliaSonera said its sales were also lifted by data growth in the Nordic mobile markets and it expects total mobile data volumes in Sweden to double in 2010.

TeliaSonera forecast that its net sales will grow approximately 3% in local currencies in 2010 and its capex will be between 14% and 15% of sales, compared with 12.8% in 2009. source: TeliaSonera presentation

China's 3G Subs Reach 25 Million

China had approximately 25 million 3G users at the end of June out of a total mobile user base of 800 million, according to the Chinese government. China also has 300 million fixed-line users and the country will invest about 120 billion Chinese yuan (17.73 billion U.S. dollars) in 3G this year, the government said. source: Xinhua article

Sony-Ericsson Lifted by Smartphones and Currency Movements

Handset maker Sony-Ericsson said its second-quarter sales were 1.76 billion euros, up 4% year-on-year, even though shipments fell 20% year-on-year to 11 million. Its average selling price rose 31% year-on-year to 160 euros due to stronger sales of smartphones, as well as favourable currency movements. source: Ericsson statement

Bullish Intel Ups Capital Spending

Intel said that it generated 413 million US dollars from sales of its Atom microarchitecture, which is designed for mobile devices, in the second quarter, 16% more than in the first quarter thanks to "strong sales of its next generation dual-core" Atom processors. Intel said it now expects capital spending to be 5.2 billion US dollars in 2010, compared with its earlier forecast of 4.8 billion and 4.5 billion in 2009. source: Intel statement

Growth Picks Up for Chunghwa

Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan unveiled figures showing its second-quarter revenues grew 2.6% year-on-year to 46.25 billion Taiwanese dollars (1.44 billion US dollars). In the first quarter, revenues grew by 1% year-on-year. source: Chunghwa spreadsheet

Samsung Sales Soar

Samsung Electronics said it expects to post revenues of about 37 trillion Korean won (30.28 billion US dollars) for the second quarter of 2010, up 14% on the 32.51 trillon won it posted in the same quarter in 2009. The Korean company didn't give an explanation for the sales rise. source: Samsung statement

HTC Hits New Heights

HTC Corporation, a leading maker of Android-based smartphones, said its total revenues in the  second quarter of 2010 were 60.53 billion Taiwanese dollars (1.88 billion US dollars), representing 58% year-on-year growth. HTC said its "2Q earnings result is better than original 2Q guidance, both June and 2Q revenues continuously hit record highs, showing good execution of brand strategy and grow scale strategy." source: HTC statement

Bharti Aims to Lift Africa Sales 40%

Following its recent acquisition of Zain's African assets, Bharti Airtel is aiming to increase its subscribers in Africa to 100 million before the end of 2012, from 42 million today, and its annual revenue there to 5 billion US dollars from 3.6 billion now, according to an interview with Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel, published in the Financial Times.

Mittal is quoted as saying: “The next wave is Africa. Minerals and metals, resources – everybody is investing, China’s rushing in there, now Europe is rushing there. You are going to see a lot of action in Africa. It is to my mind the continent of hope.” source: Financial Times