Operator group France Telecom has tightened up its executive management and simplified its innovation department in a bid to better address operational and strategic challenges.
The industry’s big hitters have finished their doing their sums and counting their cash for another quarter and revealed just how they have performed over the quarter gone by. Apple, as per usual, posted a strong growth in profit, and was joined by America Movil, which did the same. Ericsson and NTT DoCoMo, had bad news to report.
In a move that goes against the grain of firms shrinking their headcount, France Telecom has said it will recruit 4,000 employees for permanent positions over the next three years. The operator group also plans to integrate 5,000 young people each year in France on work-study placements in order to meet their needs in terms of training and work experience.
Two of Europe’s biggest operators, Telefónica and France Telecom have announced their quarterly results, both seeing declines in net profit as they battle with market conditions and increased data usage. Spanish operator group Telefónica saw its net profit fall by 34.4 per cent year-on-year for the half-year, to reach 2.08bn, down from the 3.2bn the firm recorded in the same period a year ago. This is despite the operator’s consolidated first-half revenues totalling €30.98bn; a 0.3 per cent increase year-on-year.
Jean-Pierre Bienaimé, is the senior vice president of strategy & communications wholesale for Orange and chairman of the UMTS Forum. Ahead of the LTE World Summit, taking place on the 23-24 May 2012 at the CCIB, Barcelona, Spain, Telecoms.com catches up with him to get his views on the future of the mobile industry.
France Telecom has announced that revenues dropped 0.5 per cent for the full year, to just €45.3bn ($60bn) in 2011from €45.5bn in 2010. In addition, net income after tax also fell 22 per cent to just €3.8bn from €4.9bn in 2010.
France Telecom has agreed to buy the majority of the personal stake owned by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris in Mobinil. Sawiris is executive chairman of Orascom Telecom, which maintains a stake in the mobile operator.
France Telecom is one of Europe’s telecoms heavyweights and the largest internet provider in France. Thierry Bonhomme, senior executive vice-president of Orange Labs Networks and Carriers, a keynote speaker on day three of the upcoming Broadband World Forum, recently provided Telecoms.com with a snapshot of the company’s position in its domestic market and the wider world.
Will King, head of product development at mobile ad agency Unanimis, joined the company when it was four years old, and five years before it was acquired by France Telecom in 2009. The French carrier had previously tried to establish a presence in the UK by itself, with varying levels of success, but post acquisition, Unanimis incorporates Orange’s UK network and Orange Mobile Portals, which in turn incorporates the Blyk-powered Orange Shots initiative, into its own ad network offering.
France Telecom has said that it will be withdrawing from some underperforming European markets as it warned that European and US debt issues were causing problems with economic growth.
Nordic and Baltic carrier TeliaSonera has joined the collaborative M2M programme announced by Orange and Deutsche Telekom in February 2011. The project was put in place to create seamless international M2M services across the portfolios of the German and French incumbents. At launch the agreement covered France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, with the Netherlands and the UK joining subsequently. The addition of TeliaSonera adds Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia and Lituania into the mix.
Eastern Europe is to gain another LTE player with the news that Mobitel, a Slovenian mobile network operator has deployed a test network based on the next generation mobile technology.
France Telecom (FT) has announced a two-phased strategic and financial plan for 2011-2015 which the company is calling “adapt to conquer.” Announced at the telco’s Investor Day on Tuesday, the strategy, which is part of the group’s ongoing “Conquests” programme, will focus on investment and cost reduction to improve cash flow and growth at the company.
In a major shift in operator preferences for LTE spectrum, three of Europe’s most influential carriers have joined together to encourage vendor support for LTE devices operating in the 1800MHz spectrum. Making their announcement at the LTE World Summit in Amsterdam, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and TeliaSonera earmarked the soon-to-be-re-farmed 1800MHz spectrum as their preferred choice for rolling out LTE networks.
Operator partnerships of this type are typically and justifiably met with some scepticism, but on the surface the deal appears well thought-out, clearly structured and highly focused. The greatest risk to the success of the joint venture lies in its execution, but with both partners highly committed to the partnership and sharing well-matched motivations, those risks appear to have been recognised and mitigated.
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