South African operator Telkom has written down the value of its assets by R12bn ($1.2bn) following a review by its board. The operator said the decision to revalue it’s assets is important in enabling it to become competitive and efficient.
US operator AT&T has imposed a $0.61 monthly fee on its postpaid users, standing to gain around $732m in extra revenue as a result. The Mobility Administrative Fee was introduced this month.
Operator group Vodafone has seen a 90 per cent year on year drop in profit for the full year ended March 2013. The operator posted a profit of just £673m, down from £7bn a year earlier, hit hard by a £7.7bn impairment charge in Italy and Spain over the course of the year.
Social networking site Facebook has seen a rise in revenue and profit year on year in the first quarter of 2013. The firm revealed that mobile advertising revenue represented 30 per cent of all advertising revenue for the quarter compared with 23 per cent in 4Q12.
EE, the first UK player to market with LTE, has announced that it has reached 318,000 LTE subscribers five months after launching the service.
This week US operator Verizon reported a net profit of $1.95bn for the first quarter of 2013, a 16 per cent year on year increase compared with the $1.69bn generated in 1Q12. The firm’s first-quarter revenues hit $29.4bn, marking a 4.2 per cent increase on 1Q12.
Ericsson’s first quarter profits fell year on year to SEK1.2bn (€139m) from SEK8.8bn for the same period in 2012, largely due to the boost given to 1Q12 numbers by the firm’s exit from the Sony Ericsson device JV. While the vendor recorded a two per cent uptick in sales to SEK52bn it was hit by currency fluctuations and a disappointing performance from its network rollout business.
Device giant Apple has posted its first quarterly drop in profit in ten years, with $9.5bn 2Q13 (January to March) net profit marking a more than 18 per cent decline on the $11.6bn generated in 2Q12. Quarterly revenue grew year on year however, to $43.6bn from $39.2bn a year ago. Gross margin was 37.5 per cent compared to 47.4 per cent in 2Q12.
Finnish handset manufacturer Nokia has posted a €150m operating loss for 1Q13. Viewed in context this should be encouraging; the loss is a fraction of the €1.338bn the firm lost in the same quarter in 2012.
However, net sales for the same period dropped 20 per cent year on year to €5.85bn from €7.35bn in 1Q12.
Chinese infrastructure vendor Huawei has posted its financial results for 2012, in which it saw its net profit increase by almost a quarter year on year to reach CNY15.38bn ($2.47bn). Revenue for the year stood at CNY220bn, up from the CNY203.9bn recorded in 2011.
Chinese operator China Unicom has announced a 92 per cent year on year increase in mobile data usage, attributing the growth in part to the availability of low-cost smarpthones. In an earnings release posted late last week, Unicom referenced an improvement in its smartphone “quality to price ratio”.
French operator Iliad has seen its full-year profit decline by more than a quarter in 2012. The firm posted profit of €186.5m, down from €251.8m in 2011, despite revenues increasing almost 50 per cent.
International operator group Vimpelcom, which is headquartered in Amsterdam, has posted stable earnings results for 2012. In the final quarter of the year, the group’s revenue rose three per cent year on year to reach $6bn, while net income stood at $801m. The firm posted a net loss of $381m in the same quarter of 2011.
Qatar based Ooredoo, the operator formerly known as QTel, has announced its fourth quarter revenues rose by 6.2 per cent to reach QAR8.71bn ($2.4bn). Net profit also increased by 14.6 per cent to QAR523m.
Spanish operator group Telefonica has revealed that its profit for 2012 has been hit hard as it was forced to write down the value of subsidiaries in Italy, Ireland and Venezuela earlier in the year. As a result, the firm’s full-year net profit fell by 27.3 per cent to €3.92bn.
French operator group France Telecom has seen its net income slide by 79 per cent year-on-year to €820m for the full year 2012. The firm’s profit was substantially impacted by an impairment charge of €1.841bn in 2012 on units in Poland, Egypt and Romania.
UK operator EE has posted a drop in revenue for 2012, despite being the only operator in the country to offer LTE services. The company formerly known as Everything Everywhere; created as a result of the merger of T-Mobile and Orange in the UK, saw full-year service revenue fall 2.6 per cent year on year to £5.95bn.
Spain’s Telefónica said late Friday that the Venezuelan Government’s recent decision to devalue its currency will result in a charge of €438m against its full year earnings for 2012. Earlier this month the South American nation reset the exchange rate from 4.3 bolivars to the dollar to 6.3 bolivars.
Mexican operator group América Móvil has seen its net profit for 4Q12 drop by 8.2 per cent to 15bn pesos ($1.2bn), while revenue for the quarter fell 1.1 per cent to 198bn pesos. The firm blamed the account of the depreciation of various currencies versus the peso.
Operator group Vodafone has announced a two per cent year on year drop in revenue for the final quarter of 2012. The group generated £11.39bn over the quarter, with the improvement in its operations in Northern Europe, where the firm generated 5.9 per cent more revenue than in 4Q11, being more than offset by a 17 per cent reduction in revenue from Southern Europe.
Lean and MeanWith summer supposedly fast approaching, many look to trim some fat and get in shape for the sunny months. The Informer has never been a huge fan of gyms; in fact his favourite machine in the gym is the one that sells chocolate. Telefonica’s UK arm O2, is one business that is looking to get lean for the holidays, though, and this week it announced that it is to trim 3,500 UK employees.
Cross-border opportunities are there, but Telenor has work to do in BulgariaPan-European operater group Telenor is making another move into Eastern Europe, this time buying Bulgaria’s Globul. The move makes sense for several reasons, but success won’t come easy in a country with high mobile penetration and a sluggish economy.
Telecoms.com speaks with Ali Agan, who has risen through the ranks of TeliaSonera Group to become CEO of KCell in Kazakhstan. With a young population Agan is keen to deploy LTE and exploit nascent demand for data services.
Jonathan Bell, VP of Marketing at OpenCloud, discusses how policy and pricing are just two dimensions along which telecoms operators can differentiate their propositions. By adding a third dimension, the service behaviour itself, operators can define and bring true innovation to the market that surpasses the traditional approaches of the past, he says.
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Calls for consolidation in the European mobile market grow louder by the week and four-operator markets look increasingly challenged. Now, those mobile operators that have already built scale seem to be suggesting that there is no option but to expand yet further through diversification.