India telecoms: price cuts on roaming
India’s 3m square kilometres are divided, in telecoms, into 22 circles – creating a mammoth jigsaw for consumers, operators and regulators.
Last year, the industry regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), embarked on the grandly-named “One Nation” policy which plans to abolish roaming charges. And this week it took its first step in that direction. Continue reading »
Uninor takes to the tuktuk for mobile phone distribution
You think of a rickshaw driver as someone who ferries you from place to place, right? And the newspaper delivery man is simply the chap who brings you the morning rag. Think again.
Uninor, the Indian arm of Norwegian telecom Telenor, has become the first company to use tuktuk drivers to reach its customers. Newspaper delivery-wallas and milkmen will be next. Continue reading »
ZTE: a fight to spin off the handsets
ZTE marked its 15th anniversary in the handset market on Thursday, but the man heading up that section of the business was not in a celebratory mood.
China’s second-largest telecom equipment maker should consider spinning off its devices arm lest it become a casualty of the state-controlled group’s staid ways and financial struggles, according to He Shiyou, head of the company’s handset unit (pictured). Continue reading »
HTC: phone delay dismays investors
HTC, the Taiwanese smartphone maker, has been fighting to turn around its plunging sales by learning lessons from Apple. First: spend on branding, which Apple does well and HTC does not. Second: don’t ship scratched phones, which Apple did when it first launched its iPhone 5.
To the dismay of investors and consumers, the launch of HTC’s newest smartphone has been delayed. The reason has been the difficulty producing the phone’s camera and metal back — compounded, says its marketing chief, by a desire to avoid Apple’s error and waste his newly-enlarged ad budget by annoying buyers with scuffed gadgets. Continue reading »
Bharti Airtel: licence to roam (for now)
A little temporary relief in the Indian telecoms sector.
Shares in Bharti Airtel picked up on Monday afternoon, correcting much of the morning’s loss, after Delhi’s High Court ruled that the Indian telecoms company can continue – for now – offering 3G service in regions where it doesn’t have its own airwaves until May 8. Continue reading »
Bangladesh: government mulls Grameenphone options
Subscribers to Bangladeshi mobile operator, Grameenphone, can breathe easy: Dhaka has no plans to suspend the company’s license – or its services. But Grameenphone’s owner, Telenor, still has cause for concern: Bangladesh’s government has not ruled out trying to force the Norwegian company to cede control of the lucrative venture. Continue reading »
India: there’s money in missed calls
A missed call from a friend is a coded request for you to ring back. From a daughter, a missed call could be an agreed signal that she is home safely. From a dabbawalla it means he’s arrived with your lunch.
This costless method of communication is used like a modern day Morse Code in India. And businesses are catching on – by some estimates, India’s missed call business is worth Rs5bn ($94m). Continue reading »
Nokia: pain again in China
While many multinationals see emerging markets as the future, Nokia might prefer to look elsewhere.
The Finnish phonemaker’s full year results are, on balance, grim. Any positives that can be taken out are mainly in the US. The negatives: Asia, LatAm and, especially, China. Continue reading »
Apple suppliers: already moving on
When Apple’s share price gets slammed 10 per cent, its suppliers should all suffer too, shouldn’t they?
Well, not quite. On Thursday, Apple’s disappointing results led to some falls in its suppliers’ share prices. But none was hit as hard as Apple, and some even rose. Continue reading »
Apple in China: still on a tear
You can slice, dice and knock the numbers however you like. But come on guys, let’s be honest here. Apple hasn’t done too shabbily in China. First-quarter revenue came in at $6.8bn, a 26 per cent increase quarter-on-quarter and a 67 per cent increase year-on-year. Continue reading »
LG: ready to give Apple and Samsung a run for their money?
Over the past two years, LG Electronics has watched its South Korean rival Samsung Electronics storm ahead in the mobile phone sector as its own market share dwindled.
This week has brought a couple of upbeat developments that suggest the company is making some headway at the top end of the smartphone sector. But has it really turned the corner? Continue reading »
HTC: a bad quarter to end 2012
Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC continues its struggle in an increasing competitive market. The company announced that income was down 91 per cent for the fourth quarter of last year.
It’s more bad news, after profits in the third quarter were down nearly 80 per cent. Investors seem to be getting used to it – shares on Monday were up slightly at 0.35 per cent, but have fallen hard over the past year. Continue reading »
Chart of the week: how some EMs are skipping the desktop
As telecoms companies know, emerging markets are not like developed ones. Many of them have leapfrogged over the complicated business of installing landlines and gone straight to mobile telephony. A parallel trend is playing out in the use of desktop internet and the mobile web.
Chart of the week takes a look at which countries are ahead, and which are playing catch-up. Continue reading »
Chart of the week: mobile numbers start to add up for EMs
As mobile phones approach worldwide ubiquity, it’s easy to see that the countries with the biggest populations will have the most connections, with China and India in the lead.
But which companies are serving those customers? And which ones are set to capitalise on the growth in emerging markets? Chart of the week dials in. Continue reading »
A bad week for Señor Slim
Even the wealthiest man in the world has bad weeks, or at least difficult ones.
And this has been one for Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms, retail, mining, construction – you name it – magnate. Continue reading »
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