Orange Reports Another Uptick

Source: Orange presentation

App and Cloud Sales Lift Google

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, reported a 23% year-on-year rise in revenues on a constant currency basis for the third quarter to 22.5 billion US dollars. Advertising revenues were up 18%, but "other" revenues (from the Play Store, Chromecast, Chromebooks, Android, Google Apps, and the Google Cloud Platform) rose 39%. "Mobile search and video are powering our core advertising business and we’re excited about the progress of newer businesses in Google and Other Bets,” said Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet. Source: Alphabet statement

Amazon Flags Continued Slowdown

Amazon forecast that net sales in the fourth quarter will be up between 17% and 27% year-on-year. It said this guidance anticipates approximately 60 basis points of favourable impact from foreign exchange rates. It reported a 29% increase in net sales for the third quarter to 32.7 billion US dollars. It said that the favourable impact from foreign exchange rates amounted to 52 million dollars. In the second quarter sales rose 31% year-on-year.

Amazon Web Services reported a 55% year-on-year increase in sales in the third quarter to 3.23 billion dollars. Source: Amazon statement

Consumers Keep BT Trending Upwards

BT reported a 1.1% year-on-year underlying rise in revenue for the quarter ending September 30th to 6.05 billion UK pounds (7.57 billion US dollars). BT, which has just acquired mobile network EE, said its consumer division posted revenue growth of 11%. It added 63,000 TV subscribers in the quarter, taking the total to 1.7 million Source: BT presentation

Apple Forecasts Small Return to Growth

Apple said it expects to generate revenue of between 76 billion and 78 billion US dollars in the quarter ending December 24th. If Apple hits the higher number, that would be an increase of 3% year-on-year. In the quarter ending September 24th, revenue fell 9% year-on-year to 46.9 billion dollars. Revenue fell 30% in Greater China, while overall iPhone revenue was down 13%. But services revenue rose 24%. Source: Apple statement

AT&T Hopes Entertainment Turns Up

AT&T reported that its revenues fell slightly year-on-year on a comparable basis to 40.9 billion US dollars in the third quarter. Service revenues in its wireless business slipped 0.7% to 15.1 billion dollars, while revenues in its entertainment group rose 1% on a comparable basis to 12.7 billion dollars. AT&T has announced it will buy pay TV group Time Warner for 85 billion dollars to help rekindle growth. Source: AT&T presentation

Ericsson Sees Sales Stagger

Ericsson reported a 14% year-on-year decline in revenues to 51.1 billion Swedish krona (5.7 billion US dollars) for the third quarter of 2016.  Sales fell by approximately one quarter in the Middle East, Africa and India. The company said: "The decline, in both mobile broadband coverage and capacity sales, was particularly strong in markets with a weak macro-economic environment. In addition, capacity sales in Europe were lower than a year ago."

It also signalled further trouble ahead: "The current industry trends indicate a somewhat weaker than normal seasonal sales growth between the third and fourth quarters. In addition a renewed managed services contract in North America, with reduced scope, will impact sales negatively." source: Ericsson statement

China Mobile Flatlines

China Mobile reported revenue of 172 billion Chinese yuan (25.4 billion US dollars) for the third quarter - roughly flat year-on-year. It added more than 6.6 million connections in the quarter,  taking the total to 844 million, of which 481 million are on 4G. source: China Mobile data

Verizon Acknowledges Challenging Environment

Verizon reported a 2.9% year-on-year decline in revenues in the third quarter of 2016 on a like-for-like basis. Group revenues fell to 30.9 billion US dollars as customers in its wireless division "continued to choose unsubsidized device payment plans." However, Verizon said wireless service revenues plus device payment plan billings increased 2.3%.

Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam added: “While we transform our company in a challenging environment, we have maintained the financial flexibility to invest in our industry-leading networks to better serve customers, add scale to bring innovation to the mobile media and Internet of Things (IoT) markets, and increase dividends for a 10th consecutive year.” source: Verizon statement

Mobile Subs & Revenue Growth Converging

Source: GSMAi presentation

Cellular Versus Non-Cellular Connectivity

Source: GSMAi presentation