Samsung Offers Largest Smartphone Selection

Source: Statista

Spain and Fibre Lift Orange

Orange reported revenues of 40.92 billion euros in 2016, a 0.6% increase after falling 0.1% in 2015 and 2.5% in 2014 (on a comparable basis). In the 4th quarter of 2016, revenues rose 1% after rising 0.8% in the 3rd quarter and 0.3% in the first half. Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange Group, said:"Our investments are driving our commercial performance, led by very high speed fixed and mobile broadband and despite a level of competition that is intense and unprecedented, particularly in France. Our fibre customer base grew 75% with 3.3 million customers by the end of 2016 and our 4G customer base in Europe rose 58% with 28 million customers." source: Orange statement

Telefónica Forecasts Flat 2017

Telefónica forecast that its revenues in 2017 will be stable compared with 2016, despite the negative impact from regulation, which it estimates will amount to 1.2 percentage points. It plans to spend 16% of revenue on capex, excluding spectrum, in 2017.

In 2016, Telefónica's revenues increased 1.3% on an organic basis to 52.04 billion euros. In the fourth quarter of 2016, revenues rose by 2.7% on an organic basis. In 2016, organic growth in broadband revenues accelerated to 16.1%, "services over connectivity" grew by 7.7% and voice and access decreased by 7.9%.

Digital services revenues reached 1.28 billion euros in the fourth quarter (+11.1%) and 4.79 billion in 2016 (+14.1%). Video revenues rose 12.4% to 2.8 billion euros in 2016, "driven mainly by the consistent increase in the TV base in Hispanoamerica (+4%) and by the improvement in ARPU in Brazil and Spain associated with the wider adoption of premium content." Source: Telefónica presentation

Telecom Italia Targets Big Capex Cut

Telecom Italia set a target to increase revenues each year over the period between 2017 and 2019, while keeping the capex/revenue ratio at the end of the three-year period below 20%. For 2016, it reported a 2.5% year-on-year organic decline in revenues to 19.04 billion euros and capex of 4.88 billion euros (a capex/revenue ratio of almost 26%).

Revenues for the fourth quarter were up 0.8% year-on-year in organic terms to 5.1 billion euros, reversing a negative trend that had persisted for 18 quarters. Telecom Italia said: "This positive result was driven by the domestic business unit, which grew by 2.7% in organic terms compared with -2.6% in the fourth quarter of 2015. This result was helped by the introduction of innovative offers aimed, for example, at optimising use of the mobile network in off-peak hours and at retaining the customer base by offering new products ("enabling products") that extend the reach of TIM services into adjacent markets."  source: Telecom Italia statement

New Competition in India Rocks Vodafone

Vodafone Group reported a 1.7% year-on-year rise in service revenue on an organic basis for the quarter ending December 31, lifted by 0.7% growth in Europe and 3.9% growth in Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific (AMAP). Reported group revenue fell 3.9% to 13.69 billion British pounds (17.19 billion US dollars).

Vittorio Colao, CEO, said: "In AMAP, our strong organic performance in South Africa and Turkey was partially offset by India, where the sector is affected by free services from the new entrant. We anticipate intense competitive pressure in India in the fourth quarter and are taking a series of commercial actions, including the extension of 4G services to 17 leading circles. As announced earlier this week, we have also entered discussions with the Aditya Birla Group about an all-share merger of Vodafone India and Idea." source: Vodafone statement

iPhone Recovery Lifts Apple

Apple reported a 3% year-on-year rise in revenue for the quarter ending December 31 to 78.35 billion US dollars, fuelled by a 5% increase in iPhone revenue to 54.38 billion dollars. Apple predicted that it will generate between 51.5 billion and 53.5 billion dollars in total revenue in the current quarter, which would represent a year-on-year increase of between 2% and 6%.

"We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, services, Mac and Apple Watch,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Revenue from services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.” source: Apple statement

In a conference call with analysts, Tim Cook added: "Apple Pay continued its strong momentum, with the number of users more than tripling over the past year and hundreds of millions of transactions and billions of dollars in purchases in the December quarter alone. Transaction volume was up over 500% year over year as we expanded to four new countries, including Japan, Russia, New Zealand, and Spain, bringing us into a total of 13 markets. Apple Pay on the Web is delivering our partners great results. Nearly 2 million small businesses are accepting invoice payments with Apply Pay through Intuit QuickBooks Online, FreshBooks, and other billing partners."

"Services are becoming a larger part of our business, and we expect the revenues to be the size of a Fortune 100 company this year*. Our services offerings are now driving over 150 million paid customer subscriptions. This includes our own services and third-party content that we offer on our stores. We feel great about this momentum, and our goal is to double the size of our Services business in the next four years. Source: earnings call transcript

*General Dynamics, which ranked 100th on the Fortune 100 list in 2015, had revenue of 30.9 billion dollars in that year.


Source: Statista