Will Veer-Zaara overtake K3G overseas?
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Yash Chopra's new film is poised to become a bigger hit than K3G.
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(InfoWorld) - Mobile operators meeting next week at the 3GSM World Conference in Barcelona are expected to discuss how they can work together to boost new mobile advertising services. "There is a need a collaborate in the area of mobile advertising and create some common ground when it comes to things like ad pricing and delivery," a spokesman for Vodafone GroupÂ said Monday. "Mobile advertising is a new development that will require some industry-wide conversations, and these could be on the agenda next week." But Vodafone has no plans to collaborate with other operators to create their own mobile phone search engine and compete against GoogleÂ and Yahoo, as rumored in the U.K. press. The Sunday Telegraph, quoting industry sources, said that several large European mobile phone companies, including Vodafone, T-Mobile International, France TÃ©lÃ©com, and TelefÃ³nica MÃ³viles, plan to hold high-level talks in Barcelona over developing their own search engine technology. "We're not aware of any such meetings nor are we planning to develop a search engine," the Vodafone spokesman said. A spokesman for T-Mobile also denied any plans by the German operator to develop search technology that would compete with Google, a close partner. T-Mobile has given Google prominent play in the operator's revamped mobile portal.
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(InfoWorld) - Worldwide mobile phone sales grew 21.5 percent year on year to 251 million units in the third quarter, with India and China driving growth, according to research from Gartner Inc. Gartner predicts that sales for the year will fall just shy of one billion phones. Sales should reach 986 million units by the end of the year, the research group said. Europe, one of the most mature mobile phone markets in the world, showed just 1.9 percent growth over the same quarter last year. Asia Pacific experienced the most dramatic gains, with sales of 80.8 million units during the third quarter, an increase of 54.7 percent over the same period last year. That significant growth happened despite a decline in sales of 4.7 percent in Japan compared to the third quarter in 2005. An increase in retail outlets and better distribution channels in emerging markets such as Indonesia, Philippines, and India significantly offset that loss though, driving growth in the region. Other regions of the world also reported solid growth. In Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, sales grew 19 percent compared to last year, to 48 million phones. North American sales reached 40.8 million units, up 12 percent. Sales in Latin America grew 13.7 percent over the same time last year, to 29.8 million phones. Gartner reported that the smaller phone makers will increasingly struggle to compete against the giants. In the third quarter, Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung Electronics together accounted for 68 percent of phone sales. Among those three, competition is fierce. While Motorola increased its market share during the quarter, it lost its number one position in Latin America, to Nokia, and also lost its number two spot in Western Europe, to Samsung. Nokia has the largest market share worldwide, but failed to grow its market share in North America during the quarter. Nokia's worldwide market share was 35.1 percent, up from 32.5 percent in the same quarter last year. Motorola had 20.6 percent, compared to 18.7 percent during the third quarter in 2005. No. 3 vendor Samsung had 12.2 percent market share, just slightly down from 12.5 percent last year.
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By Rhodri Marsden  The 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona last week was visited by 55,000 people, all keen to see which emerging mobile-phone technologies might soon come our way.
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Vodafone is to kick-start a global push into 3G with an array of mobile phones that is likely to outstrip the range of handsets being sold by many of its rivals.
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[Business India]: Singapore, Nov.4 : Seven Asia-Pacific mobile phone operators, including Bharti of India, with a combined total of over 56 million subscribers, on Wednesday formed an alliance aimed at creating a unified regional network.
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By Virgil Larson, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.  May 25--DENVER -- Level 3 Communications Inc. is eyeing China as a market for the network and services it now sells across the United States and much of Europe.
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(InfoWorld) - As the mobile phone industry scrambles to put cellphones in the hands of billions of unconnected people in emerging markets, less-expensive, higher-speed WiMax is likely to be the technology of choice to connect them to the Internet. "We will see some operators in emerging markets upgrade their cellular networks to support lower-speed data services such as e-mail, but there is a very strong case for deploying WiMax to provide high-speed Internet services in these regions," David Taylor, director of strategic operations high-growth markets in the mobile devices division of Motorola, said Wednesday in an interview at theÂ 3GSM World CongressÂ in Barcelona. WiMax networks require fewer base stations than 3G (third-generation) higher-speed mobile phone networks, according to Taylor. And not only are WiMax base stations cheaper, they also consume less energy because their systems don't need cooling. That's a huge benefit as powering networks cost efficiently can be a big challenge in emerging markets. Add to that the speed of WiMax -- up to 10GbpsÂ -- and the result is "a very strong case for WiMax in emerging markets," Taylor said. "Particularly small and medium-size businesses in rural areas can be served very cost-efficiently with this technology." Pakistan has already announced plans to deploy WiMax. So what happens to the many cellular networks already built or being built in these markets? They won't disappear, according to Taylor. On the contrary, operators will continue to use them to deliver basic voice and text services. Some may also decide to upgrade them to GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) or EDGE (Enhanced Data GSM Environment) technologies to support low-speed data services. "This is not a costly upgrade," he said, unlike an upgrade to 3G or LTE (Long-Term Evolution), the cellular rival to wireless WiMax. Motorola has learned "valuable lessons" about designing products for users in emerging markets, Taylor said. "Simplicity is crucial," he said. "Handsets should have few features -- they should be touch and go." Reliability is another issue. Phones must be robust and not easily breakable. "Many people spend two months of income or more to purchase a phone," he said. "They've made a huge investment in a piece of technology they expect to work -- always." Low power consumption and long battery life are also crucial as many people in emerging markets still live without electricity and need to pay to have their batteries recharged.
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(InfoWorld) - Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and the development fund of the GSM Association (GSMA), which represents the interests of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) operators, have started a pilot project to develop biofuels to power rural India's wireless networks. A similar pilotÂ to the one in India is currently being run by Ericsson and GSMA in Lagos, Nigeria, with the MTN Group, a service provider with operations in Africa and the Middle East. In India, Ericsson and GSMA are partnering with a large local operator, Idea Cellular. India has large rural areas that lack electricity connections or have an inadequate power supply, which is likely to be a bottleneck for mobile operators planning to expand their coverage to the countryside, said P. Balaji, head of marketing and strategy at Ericsson India, on Thursday. Instead, users in rural areas in India and elsewhere in the world have to choose between using biofuel or fossil fuels to power their generators. Using biofuels is environmentally friendly as it reduces carbon-dioxide emissions by between 70 percent to 80 percent, Balaji said. Biomass for biofuel can be locally produced, providing employment in rural areas, he added. Ericsson and GSMA are aiming to create an ecosystem consisting of mobile services operators, local farmers who will grow the crops for biofuel and local entrepreneurs who will generate the biofuel for the wireless base stations, using converter technology developed by Ericsson and the GSMA. Biofuel will currently provide only marginal savings to an operator, but the benefit is likely to increase as biofuel is more widely adopted, while the cost of fossil fuels rises, Balaji said. Using biofuel will also translate into savings on logistics and transportation of diesel, he added. India has been adding over 6 million mobile subscribers each month, and many operators are targeting the countryâs underserved rural markets as the next big revenue opportunity. In India, Ericsson and the GSMA have identified nonedible plant-based fuels such as cotton seeds and jatropha, a plant grown in the region. In the second phase of the pilot in Pune in Maharashtra state, the two organizations and Idea Cellular are setting up a supplyÂ chainÂ usingÂ locallyÂ grown crops to produce biofuel to power betweenÂ five and 10 base stations in the region. The goal is to have these base stations powered by cotton or jatropha by the middle of this year.
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TechWeb - Riding the wave of demand for mobile communications in developing countries and finding new ways to make money from maturing markets will be preoccupations at the world's top wireless trade show, 3GSM, in Barcelona.
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Asia is set to overtake Europe&#39;s  early lead in adopting mobile television broadcasting as Europe  struggles to find available airwaves for broadcasts, industry  executives at an Asian trade fair said this week.
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Starmap, an international alliance of second-tier European mobile operators, including Wind of Italy and MMO of the UK, is looking to expand its membership into the US and Asia as it seeks to rival the global footprint of leading operators such as Vodafone.
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Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa is to float off its mobile phone businesses in Asia. The huge conglomerate, which has so far sunk US$22 billion into 3G licence acquisition and network build in Europe, hopes
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Cingular, the largest mobile operator in the US, has signed Ericsson, Lucent and Siemens to build a 3G network. Beginning next year the telco will build networks in &quot;a number of major urban and suburban markets&quot;.
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India, already the world&#039;s fastest  growing wireless services market, is set to become a handset  manufacturing and export hub as giants such as Nokia and LG  churn out millions of phones to tap voracious demand.
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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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Vodafone has confirmed that it will launch its 3G service in the UK in November. The announcement came hot on the heals of the operators announcement of the handsets it will be making available for the launch.