Samsung's Smartphone Sales Surge Again

Samsung Electronics said sales in its IT and mobile communications division rose 60% year-on-year to 24.04 trillion Korean won (21.13 billion US dollars) in the second quarter of 2012. Mobile-related sales were up 75%. The South Korea-based company said that its smartphone shipments increased quarter-on-quarter with "a successful launch of Galaxy SIII and solid sales of the Galaxy Note." source: Samsung presentation

FT Cranks Up Network Capex

France Telecom said its revenues fell 2.1% year-on-year on a comparable basis in the second quarter to 10.92 billion euros. The Paris-based group blamed 1.9 percentage points of the fall on regulation. Revenues were down 4.8% in France, but rose 2.5% in Spain.

France Telecom said its capex rose 1% on a comparable basis to 2.46 billion euros in the first half of 2012, adding "investment in networks, which represented 55% of the Group’s capex in the first half of 2012, rose 6% with the acceleration of strategic projects," such as the deployment of optical-fibre connections in France. source: France Telecom presentation

Weak Europe Deflates Telefonica

Telefonica said that its underlying revenues rose 0.1% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2012 to 15.47 billion euros.  A 5.7% fall in revenues in Europe was offset by a 5.8% rise in Latin America.

The Madrid-based group said that is is now expecting revenue growth to be "flat to positive" in 2012, whereas it had expected growth of more than 1%. Telefonica said it is seeing a "more challenging than anticipated performance driven by a weaker macro environment and further negative impacts from regulation."

Telefonica also gave further information about its digital strategy confirming that it will avoid head-on competition with the leading Internet players.

source: Telefonica presentation

Apple Sees Slower Growth

Apple said its revenues rose 23% year-on-year in the quarter ending June 30th to 35.02 billion US dollars with its iPhone-related revenues up 22% and its iPad-related revenues up 52%.

Apple said it expects revenues in the current quarter to be about 34 billion dollars, which would represent an increase of 20% year-on-year. source: Apple statement

Wireless Data Keeps AT&T Growing

AT&T said that its revenues in the second quarter rose 2% year-on-year to 31.6 billion US dollars, after  removing the impact of the disposal of its advertising solutions unit.  The giant US telco reported that "wireless data revenues — driven by Internet access, access to applications, messaging and related services" — increased by 1 billion dollars, or 18.8%,  6.4 billion dollars.

AT&T said that approximately 27 million, or about two-thirds, of all its smartphone subscribers are on tiered data plans, compared to 45% a year ago, and about three-quarters of these have chosen the higher-tiered plans. source: AT&T presentation

Southern Europe Holds Vodafone Back

Vodafone said that its service revenue rose 0.6% year-on-year to 10 billion British pounds (12.8 billion euros) in the quarter ending June 30th, on an organic basis. A 17.1% growth in data revenues was offset by declining voice revenues, partly caused by cuts in regulated mobile termination rates. Messaging revenue fell by 1.2% after growing 2.4% in the previous quarter.

Vodafone's revenues grew rapidly in Ghana, Turkey and India, but declined sharply in Australia and southern Europe.  The company noted: "On a regional basis we continue to benefit from a
relatively stable macroeconomic environment in northern Europe, but macroeconomic and competitive pressures in southern Europe have intensified further." source: Vodafone statement and presentation

Verizon Sees Solid Sales Growth

Verizon, a leading US telco, said its revenues climbed 3.7% year-on-year in the second quarter to 28.6 billion US dollars. Wireless sales rose 7.4%, boosted by an 18.5% increase in data revenues.Verizon said it sold 3.2 million LTE devices in the quarter and its LTE network now covers almost 75% of the US population.  But Verizon's wireline sales fell 3.1%, even though revenues from its fibre services climbed more than 17%. source: Verizon presentation 

Nokia Rocked in China and Europe

 

Nokia said its net sales fell 20% year-on-year in constant currencies in the second quarter of 2012 to 7.54 billion euros. Revenues in its devices and services division fell 27% as device shipments declined 5%, while Nokia Siemens Networks' sales were down 11%. Device and services revenues fell 41% in China.

Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, said: "We shipped four million Lumia smartphones in Q2.... We believe the Windows Phone 8 launch will be an important catalyst for Lumia. During the quarter, we demonstrated stability in our feature phone business, and enhanced our competitiveness with the introduction of our first full touch Asha devices. In Location & Commerce, our business with auto-industry customers continued to grow, and we made good progress establishing our location-based platform with businesses like Yahoo!, Flickr, and Bing." source: Nokia statement

Network Equipment Downturn Hits Ericsson

Ericsson said that its sales decreased 6% year-on-year on an organic basis in the second quarter of 2012 to 55.3 billion Swedish krona (7.96 billion US dollars), as its sales of network equipment fell 20%. A 18% rise in revenues from global services helped to compensate for the decline in equipment sales.

Ericsson blamed the decline in network sales on an "expected decline in CDMA equipment sales as well as lower business activity in China, including weaker sales of GSM and lower 3G sales in Russia.”

However, the Stockholm-based company added:" After the initial large scale LTE rollouts in the US, Japan and Korea, we now start to see other countries following and we expect LTE deployments to commence on a broader scale also in e.g. Europe and Latin America. We have a well proven LTE solution, outperforming competition, and according to measurements end of 2011, we have a 60% market share measured in LTE volumes." source: Ericsson statement

ZTE Warns of Profit Plunge

ZTE, a leading provider of network equipment, said its gross profit in the first half of 2012 will be 60% to 80% lower than in the same period last year. The Shenzhen-based company gave three reasons, one of which was: "While the company sustained growth in overall income for the reporting period, it fell short of the company’s targeted growth rate as certain domestic carrier network contracts were not recognised in the results for the current reporting period given the postponement of the tender activities of such carriers. Meanwhile, there was a decline in the overall gross profit margin of the company compared to the same period last year." source: ZTE statement

Sales Slump for HTC

HTC, a leading maker of smartphones, said its total revenues reached 91 billion Taiwanese dollars (3.04 billion US dollars) in the second quarter of 2012, which represents a year-on-year decline of 27%. source: HTC statement

Telefonica Digital Targets Five Billion Euros in Revenues

Telefónica said it expects its digital unit to "drive annual revenues of approximately 5 billion euros for Telefónica by 2015, with an annual revenue growth rate of 20%,"  by targeting a range of markets, including mobile commerce & advertising, machine-to-machine, eHealth, video & content, digital security and cloud computing.

Telefónica also announced that it has secured global framework agreements with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Research In Motion to enable their customers to charge content purchases to their mobile phone bill. Telefónica said it has started to roll out the "Direct to Bill" service in Europe: In Germany, 400,000 customers per month are now making payments for a variety of products and services across different platforms, it added. Telefónica said it plans to have the service live in 14 markets globally by year end. source: Telefónica statement.

Google and Apple Tighten Grip on US Mobile Market

source: comScore statement