DOCOMO Down Again

NTT DOCOMO, Japan's largest mobile operator, said its operating revenues declined 0.9% year-on-year in the last quarter of 2011 to 1.06 trillion Japanese yen (13.91 billion US dollars). A 6% rise in ARPU from data services to 2,690 yen  failed to compensate for a 15% fall in voice ARPU to 2,190 yen. DOCOMO's LTE subscriptions were up to 1.14 million at the end of 2011 from 390,000 at the end of September. source: DOCOMO presentation

Smartphone Sales Lift KDDI

KDDI, one of Japan's largest telcos, said its operating revenues rose 5.7% year-on-year to 902.12 billion Japanese yen (11.34 billion US dollars) in the quarter ending December 31, 2011.  KDDI said the increase was due in part to rising sales of smartphones - the operator sold 1.63 million smartphones in the quarter compared with 390,000 in the same quarter a year earlier.

KDDI also said that its mobile data ARPU rose 8.2% year-on-year to 2,510 yen in the quarter, but voice ARPU fell 26% to 1,960 yen. The operator plans to spend 450 billion yen on capex in the year ending March 31, up marginally from the year before. source: KDDI presentation

AT&T Sees More Growth Ahead

AT&T, the largest telco in the U.S., said its revenue rose 3.6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter to 32.5 billion US dollars, propelled by "strong wireless, IP data and video growth." Total wireless revenues were up 10% year-on-year, lifted by record smartphone sales and subscribers choosing higher-priced plans. AT&T said that more than half of its postpaid base now has a smartphone.

In 2012, AT&T expects its revenues to continue to grow, aided by a return to growth in its wireline business. It forecast that total capex will be flat at around 20 billion dollars. In 2011, AT&T says it launched LTE in 26 cities covering 74 million people and it added "700,000 square miles of 3G mobile broadband coverage." In 2012, it plans to double the population covered by LTE. source: AT&T presentation

Smartphone Sales Soar for Samsung

Samsung Electronics said its telecoms sales climbed 52% year-on-year in the fourth quarter to 17.82 trillion Korean won (15.89 billion US dollars). Samsung said the growth was driven by sales of mass market smartphones, particularly in the European Union.

Samsung expects overall global demand for handsets to rise by a high single digit percentage in 2012, with smartphone growth over 30% year-on-year. It forecast that feature phone growth will slow down, while demand will increase for emerging market and mass-market smartphones with intensifying price competition. source: Samsung presentation 

Nokia's Sales Plummet in Europe

Nokia said its group net sales fell 19% year-on-year in constant currencies to 10 billion euros in the fourth quarter, following a 26% decline in sales in its devices and services division. Nokia said the decline was "driven by significantly lower smart devices volumes. Mobile phones volumes were approximately flat year-on-year."

Nokia added: "The year-on-year decline in our smart devices volumes in the fourth quarter 2011 continued to be driven by the strong momentum of competing smartphone platforms relative to our Symbian devices in all regions, particularly in Europe. On a sequential basis, the increase in our smart devices volumes in the fourth quarter 2011 was primarily driven by the broader availability throughout the quarter of the Nokia N9 and the shipments during the quarter of the Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 in selected markets, as well as increased seasonal demand for our devices." Nokia's Lumia range runs Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system.

Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia, said: "In the war of ecosystems, clearly there are some strong contenders already on the field. And with Lumia, we have demonstrated that we belong on the field."

Nokia Siemens Networks' net sales, at constant currencies, fell 5% year-on-year despite the acquisition of Motorola Solutions networks assets. Excluding the acquired Motorola Solutions networks assets, reported net sales would have decreased by 11% year-on-year. source: Nokia statement

Ericsson Sees Slow Operator Spending

On a like-for-like basis, Ericsson said its sales rose 6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter to 63.7 billion Swedish krona. Ericsson said that the weak "sales development in networks is mainly related to North America and Russia, where the trend continued from the third quarter with slower operator spending after a period of high investments in capacity. In addition, we saw some increased operator cautiousness during the quarter due to uncertainties such as economic development and political unrest in some countries."

Ericsson said that software represented 23% (24% in 2010), hardware 40% (37%) and services 37% (39%) of its total sales in 2011.

While global connections have topped six billion, Ericsson said the number of global mobile "subscribers/users is likely around 4.1 billion, representing 60% of the world's population. Around 75% of the subscriptions, or 4.5 billion, are GSM while only 15% are WCDMA/HSPA subscriptions." The Stockholm-based company added that "out of the installed base of subscriptions worldwide only around 10% use smartphones."

"Global fixed broadband subscriptions grew by 17 million to reach 577 million by the end of the third quarter 2011," Ericsson said. "Massive deployments of DSL and FTTH/B (fiber to the home/building) in China alone accounts for around 50% of fixed broadband additions. DSL still represents more than 60% of all fixed broadband subscriptions globally but FTTH/B have caught up with DSL in net additions." source: Ericsson statement

Apple Delivers Another Big Quarter

Apple said its revenue in the quarter ending December 31 climbed 73% year-on-year to 46.33 billion US dollars, propelled by 133% rise in revenue from the iPhone and related products. However, Apple said its "quarter" was 14 weeks long.

iPhone shipments in the quarter were up 128% year-on-year to more than 37 million. iPad revenues soared  99% as shipments rose 111% to more than 15 million. “We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

Apple said it expects revenue of about 32.5 billion dollars in the current quarter, which would be an increase of almost 32% year-on-year. source: Apple statement

Verizon Sees Strong Growth

Verizon Communications, one of the leading telcos in the U.S., said its revenues rose 7.7% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 28.4 billion US dollars, driven by 19.2% growth in wireless data service revenues and 18.2% growth in revenue from fibre services. Verizon said that 44% of its customers now have smartphones, up 16 percentage points year-on-year. It added that it has now sold 2.3 million LTE devices.

The New York-based company said that its capital spending in the fourth quarter was down 21.6% year-on-year to 3.7 billion dollars.Verizon said it is seeking to "accelerate momentum in 2012." source: Verizon presentation

Google Claims Gmail and Google+ Growth

Announcing its fourth quarter results, Google said that Android activations have reached 700,000 per day and there are now some 250 million Android devices worldwide. It also claimed that Gmail has reached 350 million users worldwide and Google+ has reached 90 million users, more than double the figure three months ago. source: Information Week article

However, an article in ZDNet noted that anyone who signs up for a Google service, such as YouTube, is now automatically given a Gmail account and a Google+ account. source: ZDNet article

Netbook Slide Hits Intel Atom Sales

Intel said its revenue from its Atom microprocessor and chipsets, which are aimed at highly-portable devices, fell 57% year-on-year to 167 million US dollars in the fourth quarter. Intel blamed the decline on lower demand for netbooks. source: Intel statement

Sony Ericsson Struggles

Handset maker Sony Ericsson said its sales for the fourth quarter were approximately1.3 billion euros, down 16% year-on-year. The company said: "Fourth quarter sales were negatively impacted by macroeconomic challenges in advanced economies contributing to weaker holiday sales, and certain component shortages from the flooding in Thailand in late October and early November 2011. Xperia smartphones accounted for approximately 80% of total sales in the fourth quarter."

Sony Ericsson estimatesd that the global smartphone market for the full year 2011 increased by 60% in volume to 463 million units. Sony Ericsson also forecast strong growth in the smartphone market in 2012. source: Sony Ericsson statement

Motorola Mobility Sees Flat Sales

Motorola Mobility Holdings, which is being acquired by Google, estimated its sales were 3.4 billion US dollars in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with 3.4 billion dollars the year earlier. It said its estimates are based on shipments of approximately 10.5 million mobile devices, of which approximately 5.3 million were smartphones. In the same quarter of 2010, Motorola shipped 11.3 million mobile devices.

Motorola Mobility said its fourth-quarter results "were impacted by the increased competitive environment in the mobile cevice business and higher legal costs associated with ongoing Intellectual Property (IP) litigations." source: Motorola statement

HTC Stumbles

HTC Corporation, a leading smartphone maker, said its revenues fell 2.49% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2011, to 101.42 billion Taiwanese dollars (3.36 billion US dollars). HTC didn't give a reason for the decline. For the whole of 2011, its revenues were up 67% to 465.8 billion Taiwanese dollars. source: HTC statement

Amazon Sells One Million Kindles A Week

Amazon.com said that, throughout December 2011, its customers "purchased well over one million Kindle devices per week." The online retailer also said that "the new Kindle family held the top three spots on the Amazon.com best seller charts – #1: Kindle Fire, #2: Kindle Touch, #3: Kindle."  source: Amazon statement