Vodafone set to sell own-brand 3G handsets: source
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British mobile phone company Vodafone  Plc is set to announce it will sell own-brand low-cost 3G  handsets from October, a source close to the company said on  Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Vodafone Group plans to launch several phones for holiday shoppers in Europe, including a high-end, touch-screen rival toÂ Apple's iPhone. The British mobile phone operator has an exclusive agreement to offer theÂ F700 smartphone from Samsung Electronics, said Jens Schulte-Bokum, head of the global terminal division at Vodafone. The F700 is based on proprietary technology developed by Samsung. The phone, which Vodafone plans to customize and co-brand, has been referred to by industry pundits as an "iPhone killer." The F700 has touch-screen capabilities and plays audio and video files. But unlike the iPhone, the device has a pull-down QWERTY keyboard and support for 3G (third-generation) and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), which has speeds theoretically as high as 7.2Mbps. Schulte-Bokum declined to comment on whether Vodafone has plans to offer the iPhone, whichÂ Apple expects to launch in EuropeÂ in the coming weeks, although he did comment on its lack of 3G capability. "We like the iPhone. We think it's a unique user experience and we applaud Apple for what they're doing in the industry as a new starter," he said. "But we regret that the iPhone, initially, won't support 3G, which we believe is necessary to deliver a compelling music and Internet experience." Of the more than 25 new handsets, including the F700, that Vodafone will launch ahead of the important holiday shopping season, 13 will support HSDPA. All of the planned new handsets will be 3G-enabled. No pricing information was available. Phones will be available beginning later this month, but a schedule of exactly which phones will be released and when was not provided. Vodafone will introduce two handsets using the Windows Mobile operating system: the Vodafone-branded 920, which is manufactured by Taiwan's High Tech Computer (HTC); and the co-branded i620v from Samsung. In addition to Windows Mobile phones, the South Korean manufacturer will also deliver two new handsets based on the Series 60 platform from Nokia. The Vodafone manager also declined to comment on whether Vodafone, which had an exclusive agreement to launch Palm's Treo smartphone in Europe, would offer a new version of the phone, to be announced on Wednesday. "We are still in discussions with Palm to refresh that lineup," Schulte-Bokum said. Palm also declined to comment. Also missing from the pre-holiday product launch are handsets based on the Linux operating system. "We expect to offer Linux-based phones, but not until spring or early summer of 2008," Schulte-Bokum said, adding that the company is a founding member of the LiMo initiative, which aims to push the standardization and adoption of the open-source operating system on mobile phones. In addition to the new handsets, Vodafone also plans to offer MusicStation, the music download service provided by Omnifone Ltd. Initially available only in the U.K., MusicStation will offer customers unlimited music downloads of more than 1 million titles directly to the internal memory or storage cards on their handsets for Â£1.99 ($4.03 ) per week, said Tim Yates, chief marketing officer of Vodafone UK. To keep prices low, Vodafone has chosen to limit service and not allow users to copy downloaded tunes to other devices, such as PCs, according to Al Russel, head of content services at Vodafone UK. Vodafone plans a premium service that, for an additional fee, will allow users to synchronize the content on their handsets with their PCs, he said.
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Leading world mobile handset maker  Nokia  is set to announce three new phones aimed at  business users on Monday, the International Herald Tribune  newspaper reported.
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(InfoWorld) - Vodafone has begun offering new fees and features to stir demand for mobile Internet services as competition hits the company's profits from voice services. Two of the group's largest subsidiaries, Germany's Vodafone D2 GmbH and Vodafone Ltd. in the U.K., announced new mobile data offerings on Wednesday with subsidiaries in several other markets planning customized packages of their own, according to Vodafone Group spokesman Mark Street. "Pricing for these new mobile Internet services will be on a market by market basis, and it will be up to each market to decide on features," Street said. "But what I can say is that as a group, we're looking at prices that are predictable and transparent and services that offer value for their money." The move comes as Vodafone, which has been facing tough competition from low-cost mobile phone operators, seeks new revenue streams to offset falling prices from its traditional cash-cow voice service. It has also been prompted by mobile Internet services, such as T-Mobile International AG's Web n' Walk, designed for quick, easy, and competitively priced mobile phone surfing. As of July 15, Vodafone customers in Germany can subscribe to the new mobile Internet service, called "Handy 2.0," available for a flat monthly fee of â¬9.95 ($13.44) . The service uses the open-source Opera mobile phone browser, which formats content for easy viewing on small displays, according to Vodafone D2 spokeswoman Bettina Donges. "Handy 2.0 will be like a PC experience," Donges said. "You'll be able to surf all around the Net with your mobile phone, the pages will be compiled fast, and they'll be easy to read." The new flat-rate Internet offering, however, doesn't apply to VoIPÂ applications, according to Donges. Vodafone will not support mobile VoIP service until it can guarantee quality service, Street said. In addition, Vodafone has struck Internet partnerships with eBay, Google, YouTube, and MySpace.com to provide services specially tailored for mobile phones. Customers access the Internet service through the Vodafone Live mobile portal. The portal service is included in the various bundled minute packages available from the German operator. Initially, several handsets, including the Nokia N73 and N95, the Motorola V3 and V980, and the Samsung Zv60 and D900i, will support the Handy 2.0 service, but other phones will be added over time. In the U.K., Vodafone is launching a similar service that takes Web pages designed for PCs and makes them easy to read on handsets. The Vodafone Mobile Internet offerings also includes partnerships with eBay, Google, YouTube, and MySpace as well as Yahoo. Analysts see a couple of advantages to the partnerships. By collaborating with these brands, Vodafone not only gives customers a better experience of using their Internet services on their phones but will also benefit from advertising revenue opportunities, according to John Delaney, principal analyst at Ovum Ltd. One slight difference between the German and U.K. offering is the price: U.K. customers who sign up for a data pack pay Â£7.50 ($14.90 ) per month for 120MB of data, which is equivalent to four hours of viewing YouTube or up to 160 mobile Internet pages every day for a month. Other customers are charged per kilobyte, up to a Â£1 per day for 500KB, with no additional charge unless the day's usage exceeds 15MB.
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Vodafone  sees glowing  prospects for its position as Spanish market leader in  third-generation (3G) mobile phone services, with 60 percent of  its new customers opting for net-friendly handsets, more than  overall market leader Telefonica .
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Vodafone Group PLC formally rolled out its 3G (third-generation) mobile communication products and services in 12 European countries and Japan on Wednesday.
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LONDON -- Vodafone Group PLC, the world's largest mobile phone network operator, said Monday it agreed with Internet search leader Google Inc. to develop maps for mobile telephones.
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Mobile phone company MMO2 says it will launch its first 3G handsets next week.
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Vodafone is putting its substantial weight behind a 3G push by offering ten handsets in the run up to Christmas. From November the firm will sell handsets from manufacturers including Samsung, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, NEC and Nokia.
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Britain's Vodafone Group Plc   launched the first of its own-branded 3G handsets on Thursday,  as the mobile phone giant tries to expand the market for  higher-paying 3G services by luring more prepay users.
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Investor's Business Daily - Europe's largest wireless carrier, Vodafone Group, this month said it's expanded its 3G high-speed wireless service to more markets -- and cell phone makers cheered.
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Vodafone has launched its UK third-generation (3G) services for mobile phones, offering video calls, music downloads and games. The 3G technology enables users to download data at a faster rate than before
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Vodafone yesterday began its campaign for dominance of Europe&#39;s Christmas market for mobile phones with nine new handsets it will use to provide 3G services offering everything from video calls to downloadable games and television clips.
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VODAFONE said it would introduce a range of 10 third generation (3G) handsets in Europe and Japan for the Christmas period, in a long-awaited full launch for the new services.
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London-based Vodafone has finally rolled out its mass-market third-generation (or 3G) mobile telephone services after a four-year wait, billions of pounds spent on licences and numerous delays.
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(InfoWorld) - Vodafone Group will introduce what could be its first mobile phone to carry its own brand exclusively, and not that of the phone manufacturer. A Vodafone spokesman confirmed that the phones will be introduced at an event in Hong Kong on Thursday, but would not provide additional details. The handsets will likely be made by China's Huawei Technologies Co., which said in February that it had signed an exclusive deal to provide Vodafone with its own brand of 3G phones. The phones would be sold in 21 countries, Huawei said, with the first handsets expected to hit the market in September. The deal with such a large operator marks a significant step for a Chinese manufacturer in Europe, which has been dominated by device makers from Europe, the U.S. and Korea. Vodafone already sells self-branded phones, but they also carry the name of the manufacturer. The handsets for its Simply offering, for example, feature the operator's logo prominently, but the name of the manufacturer, Sagem, is visible as well. Phones that carry an operator's brands exclusively are typically made by less well known phone makers. The operators often use them to improve their bargaining position with the top handset manufacturers, said Ben Wood, an analyst with Collins Consulting in the U.K. "A good [self-branded phone] strategy by network operators is a very effective stick to beat the major manufacturers with, to make sure they hit pricing in particular, but also the technology and functionality curves that the network operators want," he said. The self-branded devices are unlikely to steal much market share from the big handset makers, however. "It keeps them on their toes but I don't see it as a big threat," Wood said. "It's highly unlikely that the network operators can ever get the brand resonance on an own-branded device that manufacturers like Motorola, Nokia and Samsung get." That's partly because phone makers often spend several million dollars marketing a new phone in a single market, and operators are unlikely to match that, Wood said. In addition, end users aren't always happy with the service they get from their operator, so the self-branding may not instill loyalty. Operators typically offer self-branded phones tactically, to target a specific segment. For example, Orange sells a self-branded line of high-end phones targeted at business professionals. O2Â offers a self-branded phone for the low end of the 3G market. The new Vodafone phones may also target low-end 3G users.
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Vodafone has set a goal of 10 million third-generation (3G) mobile phone customers by March 2006 as the titan battles to recoup about 24