Today's Top Stories
1. Vodafone beats market expectations in Q2, but S. Europe causes pain
2. T-Mobile, Orange ink Polish network-sharing deal
3. Orange unveils new digital content and design unit
4. Tele2 gains scale with Network Norway purchase
5. TomTom collides with smartphones, reports unexpected loss Editor's Corner: Nokia's catastrophe continues with huge Q2 loss Also Noted: Spotlight On... Juniper: Smartphone shipments to reach 1B by 2016
Orange Spain launches mobile TV service; Telefónica unveils NFC trial in Czech Republic and much more... Wireless in the second quarter of 2011
How did the wireless industry perform in the second quarter of 2011? Check here throughout the second-quarter earnings report season for full earnings reports from the wireless industry's carriers, handset makers, equipment suppliers and others. Don't forget to check out our third quarter 2009, fourth quarter 2009, first quarter 2010, second quarter 2010, third quarter 2010, fourth quarter 2010 and first quarter 2011 wrapup pages. Special Report News From the Fierce Network:
1. GSMA picks Barcelona to host Mobile World Congress through 2018
2. Apple paid $2.6B of $4.5B Nortel patent bounty
3. HP's Bradley: Amazon's Kindle was a big driver behind Palm acquisition
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Nokia's catastrophe continues with huge Q2 loss
 Nokia CEO Stephen Elop put a brave face on the company's prospects for the future and its appalling second quarter results--a net loss of €368 million.
While admitting that the quarter was "disappointing," an understatement of some magnitude, Elop maintained that Nokia is making good progress with its new strategy and is starting to see a "positive impact on the health of the company." Quite what this "positive impact" is remains unclear. Almost everywhere you look Nokia is struggling to keep its head above water. Some observers even believe the company will suffer further ignominy when it falls to No. 3 in smartphone shipment rankings once Samsung gains second place behind Apple. With its handset business in tatters, Nokia was also damaged by its Navteq mapping division reporting a quarterly loss of €58 million, while the unloved Nokia Siemens Networks provided no comfort with a loss of €111 million. With this sorry picture, industry analysts are increasingly puzzled as to how Elop can succeed in turning around Nokia. IDC's research manager for European mobile devices, Francisco Jeronimo, believes it will take at least two or three quarters after Nokia launches its first Windows Phone handsets before the company will see positive results from its partnership with Microsoft. This means it'll be almost a year before we can gauge whether Elop's gamble is starting to produce results. By this time the smartphone world will have turned several revolutions and the Windows Phone platfrom will be available on many handsets from a wide range of vendors aggressively looking to gain market share. Equally worrying is Elop's plan to introduce up to 10 new Symbian products over the next few months. Why would customers want to purchase handsets based upon this operating system given that Symbian is a dead-end technology? Where the CEO might find greater acceptance, at least with the financial community, is with his plan to exceed the level of operating expense cuts--already set at €1 billion by 2013--by slashing back on subcontracting, IT spend and staff travel. What Elop desperately needs is time. But, unfortunately, the cell phone business continues to gain pace which will leave him with few options to fix the company and set it on a viable path to ensure its survival.--Paul Read more about: Smartphones, OPEX, Quarter Results, Windows Phone
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Today's Top News 1. Vodafone beats market expectations in Q2, but S. Europe causes pain
Vodafone beat market estimates by reporting first-quarter service revenue of £10.86 billion, up 1.5 per cent, slightly better than analysts' forecast of 1.4 per cent growth, helped by a 25 per cent surge in data revenue growth.  | | Colao | Key to achieving this growth were strong performances from Vodafone's subsidiaries in India and Turkey--with service revenue up 17 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively--which helped to offset dismal results from Spain where service revenue fell by nearly 10 per cent. "We have made a good start to the year, reporting robust results despite challenging macroeconomic conditions across southern European economies and the impact of cuts to mobile termination rates," CEO Vittorio Colao said in a statement. Two of Vodafone's major markets, the UK and Germany, managed to stay positive, with growth up 1.7 per cent in the UK while Germany remained flat. Italy was down 1.5 per cent, an improvement on the previous quarter. In May, the company said it would write down the value of its subsidiaries in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy and Ireland by £6.1 billion. "It's a robust set of numbers, if anything slightly ahead of what people were looking for," Morten Singleton, an analyst at London-based Investec Securities, told Bloomberg. With Vodafone being the first of Europe's larger operators to unveil its quarterly earnings, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Robin Bienenstock told Dow Jones Newswires that the company will likely have set the benchmark. Telefónica, which will detail its quarterly results later this week, is seen as very exposed to the ongoing troubles in its home market of Spain. Looking to the future, Vodafone's CFO, Andy Halford, told Reuters that the proceeds from its recent disposal around the world had enabled the company to reduce its net debt down to £23.1 billion. He added: "I think the balance sheet is in good shape and if there are opportunities out there we can look at them but there's not a rush to do that and it's not driven by the cash position." For more:
- see this Bloomberg article
- see this Reuters article
- see this Dow Jones Newswire article Related Articles:
Vodafone, Telefónica and Orange suffer pain in Spain
Vodafone profits in India, pushes value of mobile in emerging markets
Vodafone Germany ramps up LTE with city deployments
Operators lobby EU for ability to charge for content delivery Read more about: Vodafone, Termination Rates, Vittorio Colao, Service Revenues
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2. T-Mobile, Orange ink Polish network-sharing deal
Deutsche Telekom (DT) and France Telecom (FT) Orange have taken another step towards greater co-operation by agreeing to share their Polish networks. The deal will see Orange's PTK Centertel, Poland's largest mobile operator, and T-Mobile's Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa share access to each others networks via a 50:50 joint venture labelled "NetWorks!." According to Reuters, PTK Centertel says the network sharing deal is expected to save around €356 million in cash flow through 2015. The aim is for NetWorkS! to assume responsibility for the management, planning, support, development and maintenance of the two networks, together with reducing the number of base stations to a total of 10,000. Presently, Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa has around 7,000 installed, and PTK Centertel has 6,400. The deal will see the combined radio access network upgraded in the short-term to support the latest standards, leading to an estimated 29 per cent savings in total RAN investments over the longer term. However, the integration of the networks will not be complete until 2014, although the two operators claim that some regions will start to see the first positive effects of the deal in the first half of 2012. The agreement, which is set to run for 15 years, will be limited to the sharing technical elements of the networks, with both operators continuing to own the networks and licenced spectrum. The sales operations of both companies will continue to compete in the wholesale and retail market within Poland. For more:
- see this release
- see this Reuters article Related Articles:
New owner of Polkomtel to target Orange Poland
LTE: Polish operator to focus on wholesale and rural broadband
Report: Deutsche Telekom mulls pan-European network sharing deals
European operators enter 'co-op or compete' era Read more about: France Telecom, Poland, Deutsche Telekom, Network sharing
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3. Orange unveils new digital content and design unit
Orange formed new, 70-person unit to design and manage websites for online and mobile environments. The unit, which will operate independently of France Telecom and will be based in the UK, will relaunch the Orange online web portal as its first assignment. The new unit, called Orange Digital, will update the Orange portal to include an "On the go" function that enables users to forward stories from their desktop to their mobiles via a text message that links to the content. Orange Digital will also revamp the Orange World mobile site, with the expectation that similar work will be commissioned by Everything Everywhere for T-Mobile UK. Dominic Collins, who has been hired to run the unit, told New Media Age that the new business unit was focused on multi-screen media consumption. "Orange Digital was set up to act like an agency and provide content design and development services for both online and mobile," he said. He added that Orange Digital is expert in tailoring websites and enabling content to be delivered to a user based on their profile, such as what mobile they own. "This will help provide greater continuity of content between the separate screens," he said. Negotiations to launch similar services for other mobile industry players, such as handset manufacturers, are underway, Orange Digital said. The company also expects to announce similar deals with other divisions of the France Telecom Group. For more:
- see this New Media Age article
- see this Mobile News article Related Articles:
Orange serves up new cloud-based UC service
Vodafone unveils Android content channel
Unilever makes mobile its key marketing strategy
Google is No. 1 mobile web site in France Read more about: Mobile web, Orange World, France Telecom Orange, Media Consumption
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4. Tele2 gains scale with Network Norway purchase
An increasingly tough Norwegian telecoms market has prompted Tele2 to look for greater scale by acquiring the mobile operator Network Norway. Swedish-based Tele2, which formed a 50:50 joint venture with Network Norway in 2007 to deploy Norway's third GSM network, said it will pay around $140 million (€97.7 million) in cash and will then launch an offer for Network Norway's remaining sharees. The deal values Network Norway at $265 million (€186.7 million) on a cash and debt-free basis. Thomas Ekman, market area director Nordic at Tele2, told Reuters: "The acquisition of Network Norway will make Tele2 the clear No. 3 mobile operator in the Norwegian telecom market with more than one million customers and gives us the operational leverage that we need to complete Norway's third mobile network." Tele2, which has been struggling to compete in Norway, claims that the country's telecoms regulator has been aggressively pushing down mobile tariffs. The impact of these cuts have seen Tele2's sales fall 8 per cent in the second quarter, while core profits, at $3.75 million, fell by 66 per cent. The acquisition of Network Norway, which has nearly 500,000 customers, will still leave Tele2 trailing behind Telenor, which is Norway's largest mobile operator, and Netcom, owned by Sweden's TeliaSonera. For more:
- see this Reuters article
- see this Telegeography article Related Articles:
Telenor and MasterCard try again with m-payments pilot
TeliaSonera picks Ericsson, Huawei for Norwegian network rollout
Tele2 Russia asks to join Russian LTE research group
Tele2 and Telenor detail LTE rollout Read more about: Teliasonera, Telenor, Mobile Operator, NetCom
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5. TomTom collides with smartphones, reports unexpected loss
TomTom, Europe's leading vendor of portable navigation devices (PND), reported an unexpected net loss of €489 million for the second quarter. The company, which made a profit of €34 million in the same period a year ago, was forecast by analysts polled by Bloomberg to be on track for a €10.7 million profit. The company said its second quarter performance was significantly hurt after writing down goodwill of €473 million from the acquisition of Tele Atlas in 2008. TomTom CFO Marina Wyatt said in a conference call with analysts that Tele Atlas map sales are dragged down if demand falls for PNDs. Industry observers noted that consumers are increasingly using smartphones and free apps such as Google Maps in place of expensive PNDs, and TomTom is attempting to rebuild its revenues from maps and services from systems that are integrated into cars and vehicles. These include a premium live navigation service offering updates on traffic and road conditions as well as directions. Saless of the company's technology to the automotive industry have climbed 34 per cent to €60 million in the quarter. TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn said the company is talking with car manufacturers around the world about possible contracts for in-built navigation systems. Commenting on the latest second quarter results, Eric de Graaf of Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux, told the Financial Times: "It's clear that the company is not yet done falling." For more:
- see this Bloomberg article
- see this Financial Times article (sub. req.) Related Articles
Google Maps for Android adds downloads for offline access
Report: Apple building navigation service to rival Google Maps
Nokia Maps prove instant hit; TomTom not worried
Google Maps for mobile introduces live transit updates Read more about: Google, Android, Navigation Service, TomTom
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Also Noted SPOTLIGHT ON... Juniper: Smartphone shipments to reach 1B by 2016  Smartphones are destined to make up the bulk of handset shipments over the next five years as the number of devices shipped grows from 300 million last year to 1 billion per year in 2016, according to a new report from Juniper Research. However, the report said market competition in the sector will become so intense that the best opportunity for new entrants will be to focus on developing economy smartphones with an unsubsidised sale price of $150 or less. Juniper said that the falling cost of smartphone components and the availability of open source operating systems, such as Android, will enable economy models to capture around a third of the overall smartphone market. Release
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