Following the launches of mobile card reader devices such as Square, iZettle and mPowa, Canadian firm Inuit has launched one of its own. Intuit Pay enables businesses to take secure payments face-to-face and over the phone. The Chip & PIN card reader is currently only available for Apple’s iOS devices, and is free for a limited, unspecified, time.
Norwegian operator Telenor is becoming increasingly frustrated with Apple’s failure to support LTE on its network in Norway, the firm’s CEO told Telecoms.com.
The number of smartphones shipped in 2013 will outnumber the number of feature phones for the first time, according to IDC. The research firm’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker forecasts that device manufacturers will ship 918.6 million smartphones this year; 50.1 per cent of the total mobile phone shipments worldwide.
In a bid to revitalise its recently acquired handset business, Google has called on Apple’s former chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki to act as an advisor at Motorola Mobility. Kawasaki’s role at the firm will be focused on product design, user interface, marketing and social media.
Mohamad Mourad, Regional Manager Gulf, Google is delivering a keynote of the opening day of the Broadband MEA conference, taking place on the 19th-20th March 2013 at the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel, Dubai, UAE. Ahead of the show we speak to him about his role and what opportunities he sees for Google in the region.
Visa’s global alliance with Samsung to enable the Visa Mobile Provisioning Service and allow users to make contactless payments using Visa’s payWave mobile payment app on NFC-enabled Samsung devices is encouraging news for the NFC industry, particularly for other handset vendors planning to launch NFC devices.
Off the back of its launch of the Xperia Z at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Sony has chosen Mobile World Congress to launch its partner product, the Xperia Tablet Z. As with its stablemate, the Tablet Z is aimed at the premium market and is an exquisite-looking device that also uses the company’s unique “OmniBalance” design. Also, the Xperia Tablet Z will launch on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean).
Seventeen mobile operators have committed to launch devices using Mozilla’s Firefox OS in an attempt to generate more revenues from mobile services and help them reduce the handset costs they incur from subsidising high-end smartphones.
Operator group France Telecom has launched three Orange-branded handsets in its bid to undercut the leading manufacturers in the smartphone market.
Payment provider PayPal has launched a card reader device that handles Chip & PIN and PayPal payments in Europe. The device will be available to select UK businesses over the coming months before becoming generally available this summer.
Nokia has made strides in restoring its reputation among its UK consumers, according to research from YouGov. The market research expert’s Smartphone Mobile Internet eXperiences tracker (SMIX) shows that the Finnish firm substantially improved its levels of customer advocacy and loyalty during the last three months of 2012.
In a bid to reclaim its standing in the smartphone market, Taiwanese handset maker HTC has launched the HTC One; its flagship Android smartphone.
HTC’s latest handset, the HTC One, is undoubtedly a striking device, with an industrial design rivaling any handset previously released by the Taiwanese company, and the current crop of high-end smartphones on the market.
It has emerged that former Research in Motion (now Blackberry) co-CEO Jim Balsillie sold his remaining stake in the firm he founded at some point during 2012.
Tablets could be responsible for as much as 20 per cent of Google’s paid for search ad clicks in the US in 2013, which considering the company reported advertising revenue in 2012 of $46bn, could be a very big number.
The number of mobile phones sold globally has declined year on year for the first time since 2009, according to research revealed today. 1.75 billion handsets were sold in 2012, a 1.7 per cent decline on 2011, according to research firm Gartner.
A bank in Indonesia has developed the first mobile payments service for Canadian handset maker BlackBerry’s Messenger service (BBM). PermataBank has teamed up with British mobile banking solutions provider Monitise to roll out a commercial pilot of BBM Money in the country ahead of a full launch.
Mohammed AbdelQadir, Director, Mobile Core for Etisalat, UAE is speaking on Day One of the LTE MENA 2013 conference, taking place on the 13th-14th May 2013 at the JW Marriott Marquis, Dubai. Ahead of the show he gives us an overview of the Middle-East region and describes some of the technical and business challenges facing the operator as it deploys LTE.
Canadian handset maker BlackBerry has appointed two industry veterans to its board of directors. Richard “Dick” Lynch, retired executive VP of US operator Verizon, and Bert Nordberg, former CEO at Sony Ericsson, join the firm as it looks to reverse its decline, with all bets on the newly launched BlackBerry 10 platform.
Blackberry – the Canadian handset maker formerly known as RIM – has had a tough time in the months leading up to the launch of its long-awaited BlackBerry 10 operating system. Its financial struggles, fading market share, service outages, management overhaul and the several delays to the launch of the platform has generated unfavourable media coverage for the firm.
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.