Indian mobile firms add 5.04 mln GSM users in May
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Indian mobile phone service providers  added more than 5 million GSM customers in May, taking the user  base to 130.6 million in the world&#39;s fastest-growing cellular  market, an industry body said on Friday.
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Sri Lanka's telecom sector soared in 2006 to 7.3 million users, led by a 59 percent jump in new mobile phone connections on competition and falling call rates, the telecom watchdog has said.
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Emerging markets spark growth The total number of mobile connections in the world reached 2.5bn on Thursday, having passed the two billion mark just 12 months ago.â¦
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JAPAN&#39;S top mobile carrier has begun marketing a mobile phone for corporate customers that works over both the local wireless and cellular networks.
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(InfoWorld) - Indiaâs mobile handset production is growing fast, fueled by rapid growth in the number of mobile subscribers in the country. India produced nearly 31 million mobile phones last year, at a value of about US$5 billion, according to a report by Gartner Inc. The research firm expects production volumes to reach nearly 95 million, and to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25 percent between 2006 and 2011. Growth in handset production in India this year, at 68 percent by units and 65 percent by value, is forecast to be the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, Gartner said. Mobile phone manufacturing was the largest contributor to the country's overall electronics production revenue last year, and to the total available market (TAM) for semiconductors, Gartner said. Indiaâs mobile market is booming. The country added 6.57 million mobile subscribers in May this year, taking the total number of subscribers to 178 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in Delhi. The country added 6.11 million new mobile subscribers in April. A number of multinational handset makers, including Nokia Corp., have set up manufacturing facilities in India. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications A.B. is outsourcing mobile phone manufacturing to the operations in Chennai of Flextronics Corp. and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd, which uses the brand name Foxconn. The decision by these vendors to make phones locally was also influenced by the decision of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), a large government-owned services provider, to insist on local manufacture by its suppliers. While the top five handset makers worldwide will retain a major share of production volume, local manufacturers are expected to capture up to a fifth of India's overall mobile phone production volume by the end of 2011, Gartner said. Growing demand for low-cost and ultra-low-cost mobile phones, and the need for EMS (electronics manufacturing services) vendors to reduce their revenue exposure to large multinational vendors, will contribute to the growth of local-brand mobile phones in the Indian market, it added. Reliance Communications Ltd., a large Indian services provider, already offers its own brand mobile phones, called the Classic range. The products are currently being customized and made by contract manufacturers outside India, a company spokesman said Monday. A low-cost model launched by Reliance at about US$19 in May sold one million units in the first week, he added. The spokesman did not however comment on whether Reliance had plans to move manufacturing to India.
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A gauge of U.S. online recruitment activity rose for a fifth straight month in May as demand for workers eased slightly but remained strong, a global online careers and recruiting firm, said on Thursday.
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Telefonica Moviles SA and Portugal Telecom SGPS SA, joint owners of Brazil&#39;s largest mobile-phone company, offered 1.52 billion reais ($513 million) to buy shares in four units in Brazil, their fastest growing market.
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The global mobile phone market is set to  grow to 2 billion subscribers by the end of 2005, fueled by  strong demand from developing economies in Asia and Latin  America, Deloitte & Touche said on Tuesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Vodafone Group had almost 200 million customers by Dec. 31, but continues to face challenges in the competitive and saturated European market. The operator's European business stagnated, with fourth-quarter revenue growing just 0.9 percent year on year, excluding the effect of acquisitions. Worldwide, its growth excluding acquisitions totalled 6.1 percent. The company accounts for revenue from partly-owned subsidiaries in proportion to its holding. Vodafone said that despite low growth in Europe, some of its new calling plans, such as one that offers users a lower price for calls made within their home area and others that include fixed-line broadband Internet access, are attracting new customers. Price competition, however, is offsetting that growth. Revenue from Vodafone's operations outside Europe, excluding acquisitions, grew 14.4 percent compared to a year earlier. Egypt, Romania, South Africa, and Turkey showed particularly strong growth during the period, Vodafone said. The operator offered no further insight into itsÂ negotiations to buyÂ a controlling interest in Indian operator Hutchison Essar. The board is continuing to investigate the possibility and will only agree to a deal that meets Vodafone's financial criteria, Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin said during a conference call to discuss the results. U.S. operator Verizon Wireless, in which Vodafone owns a stake, also did well during the quarter, with Vodafone's share of the business acquiring one million new customers. Vodafone is still pleased with its stake in Verizon Wireless, although the company uses a different wireless technology to that used by Vodafone's holdings elsewhere in the world. "There is no concept of our selling our interest there," Sarin said. While rumors have surfaced regularly over the past few years that Verizon Wireless might be considering a major technology change, that's still doubtful, Sarin said. Even Apple'sÂ much anticipated iPhone, which operates on GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), the technology that competes with Verizon's CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) network, is unlikely to encourage Verizon to make a change, Sarin said. The migration to fourth-generation networks, which operators will begin to make in the next few years, will probably cement Verizon's choice. "That's the time Verizon Wireless will think about what next generation of technology that they can deploy and of course they'll try to deploy a technology that is as backward compatible as they can," he said. Data services are also paying off for Vodafone. Non-voice average revenue per user was up 62 percent for the quarter compared to the year earlier. Vodafone has attracted 50 percent of its total customers to sign up for Passport, a plan that offers reduced rates on roaming. The European Commission is proposing a regulation that would require operators to reduce their roaming rates. Vodafone doesn't expect the commission to make a final decision until this summer, said Sarin.
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The number of mobiles with GPRS and MMS technology has doubled since last year, figures show.
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Vodafone sees its customer base rise more than expected in the last quarter of 2006, thanks to emerging markets.
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India's booming cellphone market is adding 1.7 million customers every month and will grow between 15 percent and 20 percent annually, a senior industry official said.
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(InfoWorld) - Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications A.B. is setting up a research and development (R&D) unit for mobile phones in Chennai in south India. The handset maker announced earlier this year that it was outsourcing its manufacturing to the Chennai operations of Flextronics Corp. and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., which uses the brand name Foxconn. By having R&D teams in India, the company will be better able to tap into consumer behavior in local markets, Sony Ericsson said Wednesday. A number of mobile phone vendors are setting up manufacturing, R&D centers, and network operating centers in India, both to take advantage of Indiaâs low-cost labor, and also to target Indiaâs booming mobile phone market. India added 6.57 million mobile telephony subscribers in May this year, taking the total number of subscribers to 178 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in Delhi. This mobile telephony boom has translated into heavy demand for mobile phones. Over 62 million handsets have been sold in India in the last 12 months, according to internal estimates by Sony Ericsson. The company is targeting production of 10 million phones from India by 2009. The new facility will become part of Sony Ericssonâs global network of R&D units, currently comprised of sites in China, Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands, the U.S. and the U.K. The company did not, however, provide details of staffing or the nature of the work to be done at the new R&D facility.
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Recent launches by Entel PCS, Chile and MTC, Namibia raised the number of commercial HSDPA networks to 91.Comment
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By Robert Evans GENEVA  - Mobile phone subscribers around the globe totaled nearly 1.5 billion by the middle of this year, about one quarter of the world's population, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said on Thursday.
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A Saudi consortium has awarded four  international firms 1.5 billion riyals ($400 million) worth of  contracts to set up the second GSM network in the kingdom.
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(InfoWorld) - Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications will get its GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) mobile phones made in India by contract manufacturers, starting with entry-level color phones and mid-level phones with music. Annual production of its phones in the country is to reach 10 million by 2009, Sony Ericsson said on Wednesday. The phones will be made by the local operations of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which uses the brand name Foxconn, and Flextronics. These companies already make phones for Sony Ericsson in other locations. About two-thirds of Sony Ericsson's phone production worldwide is met by contract manufacturers, Miles Flint, president of Sony Ericsson told reporters in Chennai. Flextronics will start producing Sony Ericsson phones in the second quarter, with Foxconn beginning manufacturing about two to three months later. Sony Ericsson joins a number of mobile manufacturers,Â including Nokia, that are manufacturing in India or contracting Indian manufacturers, to meet the countryâs booming demand for mobile phones. India's largest telecommunications service provider, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam, insists on local manufacture of equipment it procures. Making the phones in India will help Sony Ericsson reduce costs, and offer handsets at a lower price, the company said. The phones will offer customized features for the Indian market, such as local content and customized keypads. India isÂ adding over 6 million mobile phone subscribersÂ each month. The number of wireless subscribers grew 97 percent from 75.94 million at the end of December 2005 to 149.5 million subscribers at the end of last December, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in Delhi.