RIM Warns of Sales Shortfall

Research in Motion said that it expects its shipments of BlackBerry smartphones in the quarter ending May 28 to be at the lower end of the range of 13.5 million to 14.5 million it forecast in March.

RIM added that lower-than-expected average selling prices are expected to result in revenue that is slightly below the range of 5.2 billion to 5.6 billion US dollars it forecast on March 24 for the quarter. However, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company said it expects shipments of its BlackBerry PlayBook in the quarter to continue to be in line with it previous expectations. source: RIM statement 

HTC Expects Q2 Sales to Double

HTC, a leading maker of smartphones, said that it expects it second quarter revenue to be around 120 billion Taiwanese dollars (4.19 billion US dollars), up 97% year-on-year. It forecast that it will ship between 11 million and 11.5 million handsets in the quarter, more than twice as many as in the second quarter of 2010.

In the first quarter of 2011, HTC's revenues rose 174.5% year-on-year to 104.16 billion Taiwanese dollars, boosted by a 192% year-on-year increase in handset shipments to 9.7 million. source: HTC statement

Smartphone Sales Surge for Samsung

Samsung Electronics said its telecoms sales rose 19% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2011 to 10.64 trillion Korean won (9.96 billion US dollars), driven by a 9% rise in handset shipments to 70 million and an increase in average selling prices. Samsung said that smartphones accounted for 18% of its shipments in the first quarter compared with 14% in the previous quarter.

Samsung said it expects industry handset shipments to rise to 1.5 billion units in 2011 from 1.36 billion in 2010. The Korean company also expects product and price competition in the tablet market to intensify with new model launches. source: Samsung presentation

Sprint's Sales Climb

Sprint, one of the largest mobile operators in the U.S., reported first quarter revenues of approximately 8.3 billion US dollars, which is a 3% increase from the same quarter a year ago. Sprint said the year-over-year improvement "was primarily due to higher ARPU for postpaid and prepaid, growth in the number of prepaid subscribers and higher wireless equipment revenues, partially offset by net losses of postpaid subscribers and lower wireline revenues."

Sprint said that capital expenditures amounted to 555 million dollars in the quarter, compared to 419 million dollars in the first quarter of 2010.  Sprint said it has now launched or announced 22 "4G devices" and offers "4G service" in 71 markets in 28 states. Sprint uses WiMAX to provide its "4G services", which it says are "up to 10x faster" than 3G services running at 600 Kbps. source: Sprint statement

DOCOMO Sees Sharp Fall in ARPU

NTT DOCOMO, Japan's largest mobile operator, said that its operating revenues fell 2.6% year-on-year in the quarter ending March 31 to 1.015 trillion Japanese yen (12.48 billion US dollars).  DOCOMO said that its ARPU in the quarter fell almost 6% year-on-year to 4,760 yen, as a 15% decline in voice ARPU more than offset a 4% rise in packet (data) ARPU.

The Tokyo-based company forecast that rising usage of smartphones will lift its ARPU to 4,890 yen, increasing its total revenues marginally, in the year ending March 31, 2012, to 4.23 trillion yen, up from 4.224 trillion the previous year. As it restores facilities damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake, DOCOMO forecast that it will spend 705 billion yen on capex in the year ending March 31, 2012, compared with 668.5 billion the previous year and 686.5 billion the year before that. source: DOCOMO statement

KDDI Pins Hopes on Smartphones

KDDI, Japan's second largest telecoms company, forecast that its revenues will grow 0.7% in the financial year ending March 31, 2012 to 3.46 trillion Japanese yen (42.41 billion US dollars) after a fall of 0.2% the previous year.  KDDI expects smartphones to account for 33% of all handsets its sells in the year to March 31 compared with just 9% the previous year. The company said that the data ARPU of customers who change to a smartphone rises by approximately 1600 yen.

KDDI also forecast that its capital spending will be 460 billion yen, including 20 billion yen related to repairs following the earthquake in east Japan, in the current financial year. That would amount to an increase in capex of 3.7% on the previous year. source: KDDI presentation

Ericsson's Sales Soar

Ericsson said that its sales for comparable units, adjusted for currency and hedging, increased 25% year-over-year in the first quarter to 53 billion Swedish krona (8.78 billion US dollars). Hans Vestberg, CEO of Ericsson, said that the sales growth was "driven by continued strong demand for mobile broadband and especially for the multi-standard radio base station RBS 6000.”

The Stockhom-based company added: "Global mobile penetration is 79% and total mobile subscriptions have reached 5.5 billion. India and China accounted for about 48% of the estimated 190 million net additions during the first quarter, adding around 65 and 30 million respectively. Indonesia and Vietnam were third and fourth countries in terms of net additions."

Ericsson also reported: "Global fixed broadband subscriptions grew by 14 million new subscriptions to reach 523 million during the fourth quarter 2010, mainly boosted by strong growth in DSL in China. DSL represents more than 60% of all fixed broadband subscriptions."

Annual WCDMA/HSPA radio access network investments passed GSM investments in 2009, eight years after the 3G introduction in Western Europe, according to Ericsson. WCDMA "will remain the dominant access technology for many years to come, in terms of global investment, despite the fact that 4G/LTE is being rolled out and launched" the company added. source: Ericsson statement 

Voice Volumes Lift China Mobile

China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, said its operating revenue reached 118.17 billion Chinese yuan (18.15 billion US dollars) in the first quarter of 2011, representing an increase of 8.3% compared to the same period of last year.

China Mobile added that, as of 31 March 2011, its total customer base exceeded 600 million, compared with 584 million at the end of 2010. Total voice usage volume for the first quarter of 2011 increased by 13.8% compared to the same period of last year.  The Beijing-based company added that SMS usage volume increased by 3.3% compared to the same period of last year, while "the mobile internet access business and other data businesses maintained a relatively rapid growth." source: China Mobile statement

KPN Hit By Voice and SMS Substitution

KPN said that its revenues in the first quarter of 2011 fell 1.3% year-on-year to 3.24 billion euros, partly because of lower-than-expected revenues in its home market of The Netherlands.

KPN said that increasing usage of new apps is resulting in accelerated substitution of SMS and voice by data and that its current tariff bundles are "not positioned to fully monetize data usage growth." KPN said it is seeing significantly less SMS usage and decreased outside bundle calling in the Netherlands. source: KPN presentation

Smartphone Sales Surge at Verizon

Verizon, the U.S.'s second largest telco, said its consolidated revenue grew 5.3% year-on-year in the first quarter to 27 billion US dollars. It said that wireless service revenues grew 6.3%, wireless data revenues rose 23.7% and fibre-based services climbed by 23.7%.

Verizon's capital expenditure in the first quarter was 4.4 billion dollars, compared with 3.4 billion dollars a year earlier, but the telco said it still plans to keep capital spending flat in 2011. source: Verizon presentation

AT&T Sustains Sales Growth

AT&T, the largest telecoms company in the U.S., said its consolidated revenue grew 2.3% year-on-year to 31.2 billion US dollars in the first quarter, fuelled by 10.2% wireless revenue growth. AT&T added that it activated 3.6 million iPhones in the quarter, while approximately 40% of the 5.5 million smartphones it sold in the quarter were Blackberry, Android and Windows 7 devices.

AT&T said the text messages sent via its network increased by more than 25% year-on-year to 179.8 billion, and multimedia messages increased by 54.2% to 3.7 billion.

AT&T added that its wireline consumer revenue grew 0.5% year-on-year, driven by a 218,000 increase in subscribers for its U-Verse TV service to 3.2 million. The giant telco said its capex was 4.13 billion dollars in the quarter compared with 3.15 billion a year earilier. source: AT&T statement

Nokia Sees Trouble Ahead

Nokia said its net group sales rose 4% year-on-year in constant currencies in the first quarter of 2011 to 10.4 billion euros, driven by a 15% rise in sales at Nokia Siemens Networks. Sales in Nokia's devices and services division climbed just 1% in constant currencies to 7.09 billion euros.

Nokia said a 1% year-on-year increase in its global mobile device volumes during the first quarter "was driven primarily by an improvement in overall market conditions, offset by an intense competitive environment and tight component availability for certain products."

The Finland-based company said it expects shortages of certain components, related to the earthquake in Japan, to continue to impact its mobile device volumes at least through the second and third quarters of 2011. Nokia expects sales in its devices and services division to be between  6.1 billion and 6.6 billion euros in the second quarter 2011, compared with 6.8 billion euros in the same quarter in 2010.

Nokia said its sales forecast is based on a number of factors, including a "greater impact from our lack of dual-SIM devices than we experienced in the first quarter 2011 and a lower contribution from new products in the second quarter 2011 compared to the first quarter 2011 as we plan to start shipping the majority of our new products in the second half of the year."

Nokia estimated its mobile device market share was 29% in the first quarter 2011, down from an estimated 33% in the first quarter 2010 and an estimated 31% in the fourth quarter 2010. source: Nokia statement

iPhone Lifts Apple Even Higher

Apple said its net sales in the quarter ending March 26 soared 83% year-on-year to 24.67 billion US dollars as sales of the iPhone and related products and services climbed 126% to $12.3 billion. Apple shipped 18.6 million iPhones in the quarter, up 113% year-on-year.  As of March 26, 2011, Apple was selling the iPhone in 90 countries through 186 carriers.

The Californian company also said that net sales of the iPad and related products and services were $2.8 billion in the quarter, as the company shipped 4.7 million units, compared with 7.3 million the previous quarter. During the quarter, the combined net sales for the iTunes Store, App Store and iBookstore were $1.4 billion, up 23% year-on-year. Apple sold 9.02 million iPods during the quarter, representing a 17% unit decline from the year-ago quarter. source: Apple statement

Huawei Sees Strong Growth

Huawei Technologies, a leading telecom solutions provider, said its sales revenues rose 24.2% in 2010 to 185.2 billion Chinese yuan (28.52 billion US dollars). The Shenzhen, China-based company said it "maintained steady growth in 2010 on the back of notable expansion in overseas markets as well as continued development in its three core business divisions – Telecom Networks, Global Services, and Devices. By the end of 2010, Huawei had deployed over 80 singleRAN networks for operators, among which 28 LTE networks were commercially launched or ready to be launched. Huawei also shipped 120 million devices around the world." source: Huawei statement

Telefonica Sees New Sales Mix

Telefonica said that it expects access and voice revenues to account for 64% of its total revenues in 2013 compared with 75% in 2010. The Madrid-based telco expects broadband to expand to 25% of its revenues (from 18% in 2010) and "services beyond connectivity" to climb to 9% (5% in 2010) in the same period. However, César Alierta Izuel, chairman and CEO of Telefónica, said that telcos will need to work with device suppliers and Internet players to overcome the challenges facing the ICT industry.

Between 2010 and 2013, Telefonica, which has operations in Europe and Latin America, forecasts that the compound annual growth rate of its revenues will be between 1% and 4%. It plans to spend less than 27 billion euros on capex across 2011, 2012 and 2013. source: Telefonica presentation 

Android Activations Up to 350,000 a Day

Google said that 350,000 Android devices are now being activated every day worldwide and that there have been 3 billion downloads from Android Market to date. source: Mobile Business Briefing

HTC Almost Triples Revenues

Smartphone maker HTC said that its revenues rose almost 175% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2011 to 104.16 billion Taiwanese dollars (3.61 billion US dollars). The Taiwan-based company is a leading supplier of smartphones that use the Android and Windows operating systems. source: HTC statement

MTS Sees Double Digit Growth Ahead

MTS Group, one of the largest mobile operators in Russia and Eastern Europe, said it expects its revenues to grow by around 10% in 2011 due to improving macroeconomic conditions, rising data traffic, a greater contribution from its retail business, general usage growth and "further development of our businesses in the CIS."

MTS added that it plans to spend between 22% and 24% of its revenues on capex in 2011, compared with 23% in 2010, when its capex amounted to 2.6 billion US dollars. MTS said it now has more than 6,500 3G base stations installed in Russia and has launched LTE networks in Uzbekistan and Armenia

In the fourth quarter of 2010, MTS said its revenue in Russia grew 17% year-on-year to 77.8 billion Russia roubles (2.75 billion US dollars), lifted by a 48% increase in revenues from data traffic. source: MTS presentation

3 Group Sees Double Digit Growth

Hutchison Whampoa said its 3 Group division, which provides 3G services in Europe and Australia, increased its revenue by 10% in local currencies in 2010. After translation to Hong Kong dollars, 3 Group's revenues increased 11% to total 64.205 billion Hong Kong dollars (8.25 US dollars). The Group’s registered 3G customer base increased 13% during the year and currently totals over 29.6 million customers. That figure includes approximately 6 million mobile broadband access (laptop) customers, a 32% increase from last year.

Hutchison Whampoa also reported that HTHKH, a Hong Kong listed subsidiary with telecoms operations in Hong Kong and Macau, achieved an increase of 17% in revenue to 9.88 billion Hong Kong dollars. The Hutchison Asia Telecommunications division, which includes start-up mobile operations in Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as mobile operations in Sri Lanka, reported total revenue of 2.49 billion Hong Kong dollars, a 34% increase compared to last year.  At 31 December 2010, Hutchison Asia Telecommunications had a mobile customer base of 25.7 million, a 101% increase during the year. source: Hutchison Whampoa statement

Facebook Claims 250 Million Mobile Users

Launching a single mobile site that it claims will work with thousands of different handset models, Facebook said that half of its 500 million users now access the social networking service using their mobile phones. source: Mobile Business Briefing