INTERVIEW: Telstra Rev Growth Similar To 2H04 -2-
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SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--Telstra Corp.&#39;s (TLS) revenue so far this fiscal year has been growing at a similar pace to the second half of 2003-04, Chief Financial Officer John Stanhope said Monday.
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In the long term, the device will reshape mobile telephony.  But in the shorter term, don't expect upheaval.
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Telstra Corp., Australia&#39;s biggest phone company, agreed to buyback A$750 million ($576 million) of its own stock at the lowest price in a range offered to shareholders.
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Vodafone made good on its promise to return more cash to shareholders yesterday with a doubling of its half-year dividend and plans to buy back a further Â£2.2bn of shares over the next four months.
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(InfoWorld) - New research has confirmed that India's mobile phone market is set for a period of fast growth, with revenue from cellular services expected to jump by more than 18 percent each year for the next five years. Most of the growth will come from rural areas, where only 2 percent of the population have access to mobile phones today, said Madhusudan Gupta, senior research analyst at Gartner, which conducted the research. Service providers have already started to focus on rural markets, with aggressive rates and handsets priced at under $25, he said. Cellular service revenue in India will increase at a compound annual rate of 18.4 percent between this year and 2011, to reach $25.6 billion, Gartner estimated. Cellular revenue last year was $8.9 billion. As call rates fall from their current level of 2.6 cents per minute to rates comparable to fixed lines, which are about 0.9 cents per minute, a broad swathe of additional users will start using mobile phones, Gupta said. "The fixed-line infrastructure in India is not that good, which is giving enough of space for mobile wireless to move in," he said. Revenue from data will outpace that of voice services and contribute to about one fifth of revenue in 2011, more than double its share last year, although most of that growth will come from urban markets, Gartner said. As they expand into rural areas, operators will see their average revenue per user (ARPU) fall to $59.50 per year by 2011, from $82.1 last year. Successful operators will be those that make up for the falling ARPU through economies of scale, Gupta said. Operators are likely to collaborate by sharing infrastructure and outsourcing their network management to equipment vendors, and possibly system integrators, he added. For example, Bharti Airtel, a large Indian service provider, said Wednesday it had awarded a contract worth $2 billion over two-years to Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, to expand its network in rural areas and provide capacity management. The service providers should not be short of funds for expansion.Â Vodafone Group's acquisitionÂ in May of a controlling interest in the Indian operator Hutchison Essar, for $10.9 billion, has increased the valuation of all Indian service providers, and is helping them to attract private equity and other investments, Gupta said. The rural demand will come from businesses expanding into these areas, as well as from local businesses. Some individuals will own mobile phones, although the predominant model is likely to be a communally-owned handset, a concept already tried in some areas, Gupta said. India added 15.5 million mobile subscribers in the first quarter of this year, taking the total to 165.1 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Gartner expects 58 percent of the rural population and 95 percent of the urban population to be covered by mobile networks by 2011. That year, the total number of mobile connections in India will have increased to more than 462 million, according to Gartner. India's total population at that time will be close to 1.2 billion, according to some estimates.
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Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Australian  operator Telstra will  achieve two significant  milestones  when later  this  week they  launch  the world's first  200km  cell range  in  a commercial  mobile  broadband network and maximum network  downlink speeds of  14.4Mbps.
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Joy at data revenues leap Vodafone stuck to its outlook guns this morning when it released a trading statement that showed data revenue growth far outstripping the increase in dreary old voice.â¦
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AT&amp;T&#39;s revenue was up 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, largely driven by increases in mobile phone and broadband customers, the company said Thursday.AT&amp;T&#39;s pro forma revenue was $30.4 billion for the quarter, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier, when comparing combined revenue from AT&amp;T, BellSouth and the former Cingular Wireless.&#160;AT&amp;T acquired BellSouth&#160;and&#160;Cingular&#160;on Dec. 29, 2006.A net gain of 2.7 million mobile subscribers helped drive up the year-over-year pro forma numbers, AT&amp;T said in a news release. Most of those subscribers&#160;came to AT&amp;T through its exclusive contract to provide service for Apple&#39;s iPhone; Apple said Tuesday it sold 2.3 million iPhones during the quarter.AT&amp;T&#39;s official reported revenue for the fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31, was $30.3 billion, up from stand-alone revenue of $15.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006. Those numbers were up slightly from the third quarter of 2007. Some merger-related costs account for the difference in revenue figures.AT&amp;T reported a net income of $3.1 billion for the fourth quarter of 2007, up from $1.9 billion, mostly due to its acquisition of BellSouth and Cingular.By comparison, AT&amp;T also had net income of $3.1 billion for the third quarter of 2007, with both quarter&#39;s numbers including income from BellSouth and Cingular, which was co-owned by AT&amp;T and BellSouth.The company&#39;s reported earnings per share were $0.51, up from $0.50 in the fourth quarter of 2006. Excluding one-time charges, earnings per share was $0.71, matching consensus earnings expectations by analysts polled by Thomson Financial. However, AT&amp;T missed on the revenue side: analysts had expected it to post $30.55 billion.AT&amp;T had an &quot;excellent&quot; fourth quarter, Randall Stephenson, AT&amp;T&#39;s chairman, president and CEO, said in the statement. AT&amp;T&#39;s mobile customer increase was the largest quarterly gain ever by a U.S. provider, he said. The company had 70.1 million mobile customers at the end of the year.Stephenson also pointed to growth in AT&amp;T&#39;s enterprise and broadband businesses. &quot;These growth trends, combined with the significant opportunities we have for continuous cost improvements, reinforce the positive outlook we have for our business,&quot; Stephenson said. &quot;AT&amp;T has a terrific set of assets and an impressive record in terms of executing and delivering on targets, and I am very confident in our ability to drive strong results in 2008.&quot;AT&amp;T&#39;s mobile revenues were $11.4 billion, up 16.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006. Mobile data revenue was up 57.5 percent.In AT&amp;T&#39;s wireline business, the company had 231,000 subscribers to its U-verse IP-based video service at year&#39;s end, up from 126,000 at the end of the third quarter.AT&amp;T&#39;s broadband revenues grew 13.7 percent in the fourth quarter to $1.4 billion. Total high speed Internet connections, which include DSL, AT&amp;T U-verse high speed Internet and satellite broadband services, increased by 396,000 in the quarter to reach 14.2 million, up by 2 million from the end of 2006.
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SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--Under pressure to boost investor interest ahead of aA$30 billion share sale, Australia&#39;s largest telephone company Telstra Corp.
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Telstra Corp has announced a $750 million off-market share buy-back as part of its capital management program. Telstra expects to return $1.
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A total of 185,284,269 shares were bought back at $4.05 per share, representing three per cent of Telstra&#39;s non-government owned issued capital.
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LONDON Vodafone Group, the world&#39;s largest mobile phone operator, said on Tuesday that it had doubled its six-month dividend and extended a stock buyback by Â£1 billion to increase shareholder returns after sales fell for the first time.
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Vodafone yesterday announced plans to raise an additional Â£2.5bn a year through cost savings and increasing its market share within the next four years.
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Driven largely by gains in its wireless and data businesses, Verizon Communications&#39; revenue was up 5.5 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2007, and net income was up slightly.Verizon on Monday reported revenue of $23.8 billion for the fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31, up from $22.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006. Verizon&#39;s net income rose from $1.03 billion to $1.07 billion this past quarter.Earnings per share was $0.37, or $0.62 before one-time items, matching consensus earnings expectations by analysts polled by Thomson Financial. However, analysts had expected revenue of nearly $24 billion for the quarter.Not counting one-time charges, operating income dropped 0.6 percent, to $3.4 billion. One-time items included severance packages for layoffs that will continue through 2008, and a spin-off of wireline access lines in parts of New England.Verizon reported &quot;strong growth in sales of all our strategic products,&quot; Verizon Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg, said in a statement. &quot;We see significant opportunities to grow revenues and expand our leadership in wireless and broadband markets, while reducing operating expenses.&quot;Verizon&#39;s revenue for the year was $93.5 billion, up by $5.3 billion from 2006.Verizon focused on growth in a couple of key areas, including its wireless business.Verizon Wireless&#39; customer numbers increased 11.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, to a total 65.7 million, the company said. Wireless revenue for the quarter was $11.4 billion, up 13.3 percent from a year ago. Verizon Wireless added 2 million customers during the quarter.Wireless data revenue was particularly strong, said Doreen Tobin, Venison&#39;s chief financial officer. Wireless data revenue grew by 65 percent in 2007, she said during a conference call.&quot;We see enormous potential for growth in wireless data for years to come,&quot; she said.Total wireless revenue grew 15.3 percent in 2007, to $43.9 billion for the whole year. &quot;We have a proven business model,&quot; Tobin said. &quot;These results are further evidence of great execution, sustainable growth, and strong cash generation.&quot;In Verizon&#39;s data business, the company added 245,000 Fios fiber-based Internet customers, and 226,000 Fios television customers. The company added a total of 264,000 broadband customers in the quarter, including Fios and DSL (digital subscriber lines). Data revenue increased 12.8 percent to $4.8 billion.Some of those gains were partially offset by a 1.4 percent decrease in overall wireline revenue. Wireline revenue was $12.5 billion for the quarter, which includes the data revenue.Verizon had a &quot;very good year,&quot; but it faces some challenges in 2008, said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst.&quot;This year will be a little tougher with trouble in the housing market and debates about a coming recession, but so far, so good for Verizon,&quot; Kagan wrote in an e-mail. &quot;The telecom industry continues its strong growth, and cable television competitors have signaled price increases again, but at some point soon brisk competition will break out between the cable television companies and the telephone companies.&quot;The competitive action has started in many markets, but will spread dramatically this year,&quot; Kagan added. &quot;This will be an exciting year to keep our eyes on.&quot;Verizon has not yet seen slumping sales due to fears of a recession in 2008, Tobin said.
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Growth is returning to the global wireless giant.
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WHY are Telstra shares yielding about 9 per cent on a gross dividend basis, even though revenue and profits are rising at an annual rate of about 4 per cent?
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KPIs show network is performing Vodafone has published its key performance indicators for the last year, and things are looking good for the world's second largest mobile phone operator.â¦