More than 5 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by 2013 !

According to Informa Telecoms & Media, by 2013 the number of subscriptions worldwide will have risen to more than 5.3 billion and annual revenues from the global mobile market will top USD 1.03 trillion. From end-2007 to end-2013, the global mobile market will see huge growth, increasing in size by over half (56%), according to the latest edition of Informa Telecoms & Media’s Global Mobile Forecasts to 2013.

It took over 20 years to reach 3 billion subscriptions, but another 1.9 billion net additions are forecast in just six years, with the global total nudging past the 5-billion milestone in 2011. With this extraordinary growth, total annual revenues derived from mobile operators will grow by over a third (33.9%), jumping from USD 769 billion in 2007 to USD 1.03 trillion six years later.

Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts more than three quarters (78%) of global net additions between 2007 and 2013 to come from markets in Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America, which will be the powerhouses of organic growth over the next five years. Astonishingly, nearly half (47%) of the 1.9 billion global net adds will come from just five markets – India, China, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. By contrast, the mature markets of North America and Western Europe will in total contribute just 8% of global net adds, reflecting the high level of saturation in these markets.

Globally, subscription penetration will approach the 75% mark in 2013, while some countries will push past the 150% barrier – Romania (152%), Russia (153%), Italy (168%), Ukraine (173%) and Greece (183%). Growth in subscriptions (the number of SIMs) will outstrip growth in subscribers (the number of unique users), pointing to greater multi-SIM ownership. The global ratio of subscriptions to subscribers will increase from 1.29 in 2007 to 1.32 in 2013. In Western Europe, the ratio will reach 1.55 in 2013, and even higher (1.75) in Eastern Europe.

As the global subscription base expands, total annual revenues will increase to over USD 1 trillion in 2012. Voice revenues will continue to make up the lion’s share of total revenues, but will see slowing growth, and even a decline from 2010 onwards. With regulators worldwide looking to promote competition, forcing operators to push down voice tariffs, Informa Telecoms & Media expects voice revenues to peak as soon as 2009 in Western Europe, and even by end-2008 in North America. In more developing markets such as the Middle East and Asia Pacific, voice revenues will not peak until 2011, and 2012 in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Operators globally will be challenged to generate sustainable revenues as average revenue per user (ARPU) continues to drop. To keep annual revenues on the up, operators will need to promote usage of data services. Annual data revenues, unlike voice revenues, will go from strength to strength, and will more than double from USD 148 billion in 2007 to USD 347 billion in 2013. As a result, the proportion of total revenues generated by data services will increase from less than a fifth (19.2%) in 2007 to over a third (33.7%) at the end of the forecast period.

With voice revenue streams diminishing, industry players will encourage data spend among subscribers by innovating in non-voice services and differentiating their data service offerings from those of their competitors. While 2G will remain the dominant technology generation by subscription numbers until 2013, its market share will fall from over two thirds (66.9%) in 2007 to less than one third (32.7%) in 2013, as 3G+ technologies continue to gain ground. 3.5G technologies accounted for just 1.2% of total subscriptions in 2007, but will represent nearly a quarter (22.9%) of the global subscription base by 2013 and exceed the number of 3G subscriptions.

Chinese operator buys Pakistan's Paktel

China Mobile Ltd., the country's biggest mobile-phone operator by subscribers, has said that its parent, state-owned China Mobile Communications Corp., bought 100% of Pakistan telecommunications operator Paktel Ltd. for US$460 million and renamed it CMPak Ltd.

The parent company plans to invest US$400 million in Pakistan this year to expand the (CMPak) networks. China Mobile Ltd. might acquire the Pakistan operation from its parent in the future.

Future of content on mobile - Mobile TV will dominate !

The research house, Screen Digest has released a report which studies the impact three very different offerings of mobile content will have on key mobile markets by 2011.

1) Mobile gaming
The gaming market is currently worth €1.6bn, with 50% of that revenue based in South Korea and Japan, but market growth is slowing. By 2011 it will be worth €2bn ? increasing only incrementally in the next five years. Screen Digest mobile analyst David MacQueen believes that as operators shift focus onto music and TV services, the mobile games market will stall unless current business models change.

2) Mobile music
Screen Digest forecasts that the global over-the-air full track music download market will grow explosively over the next five years, reaching €1.47bn by 2011 ? an eight fold increase from 2006. One of the major contributing factors to this growth is going to be the availability of subscription services which offer more than just audio tracks. However, the majority of music on mobile phones will still be 'side loaded' from the PC. (Also see our story on digital music )

3) Mobile TV
As per the report, Mobile TV will put gaming and music in the shade.
It is the newest of all mobile content offerings ? TV ? that looks set to emerge as the strongest performer globally, delivering €4.7bn of revenue from 140 million subscribers by 2011. The new broadcast services, launched in only a handful of markets, are growing rapidly. For instance, Unicast services, delivered over existing 3G networks, have begun to generate real revenues in Europe.
While cynics doubt that consumers will be happy watching TV on such a small device, consumers are proving them wrong. Just under 6m people watch broadcast mobile TV in Japan and South Korea and the new broadcast networks in Italy have already attracted just under half a million subscribers only a few months after launch. Mobile TV's revenue potential is greater than that of games or even music due to the mass market nature of the product. Screen Digest believes customers will subscribe to 'simulcast' channels ? that is, simultaneous broadcasts of conventional TV programming.
Regulatory and competitive pressures have pushed down the average consumer spend on voice and messaging. Mobile operators must now look to new content offerings to deliver the business growth they've enjoyed over the past decade. Screen Digest believes that the revenue is out there ? and operators should be looking to TV, music and games to deliver it.

Survey on mobile TV

comScore has published the results of a study analyzing Americans' usage of, and attitudes toward Mobile TV. The study, based on a survey of more than 2,000 mobile phone users, revealed that nearly two out of three Mobile TV subscribers are male and that nearly half are below the age of 35.

Mobile TV Most Popular Among 25-34 Year Olds
Forty-six percent of those who currently subscribe to Mobile TV are below the age of 35 and 65 percent are male. Males were also more likely than average to be interested in Mobile TV, while females were more likely to report being not interested.

Verizon V-Cast Leads in Product Awareness
As part of the study, comScore asked consumers about their awareness of various Mobile TV services. Verizon V-Cast generated the highest overall awareness, with 22 percent of respondents indicating they were familiar with the service. In comparison, 9 percent were aware of MobiTV and 3 percent were aware of Modeo. Among those who currently subscribe to Mobile TV, awareness was substantially higher for Verizon V-Cast (43 percent), MobiTV (34 percent), and Modeo (15 percent).

Consumers Want Traditional TV Content on Mobile TV
Overall, consumers would prefer to watch traditional-style Mobile TV content rather than modified or specialized content. Fifty-six percent of respondents would prefer to watch the "entire TV show" rather than a condensed version and 53 percent favored general content (such as news) over focused content (such as extreme sports programming). However, of those who currently subscribe to Mobile TV, 46 percent prefer general content to focused content and 43 percent prefer entire TV shows to condensed TV shows. Those interested in Mobile TV preferred local news, dramas, movies and sitcoms above other content.
Primary Motivator in Subscribing to Mobile TV Service is "Cost of Service"
comScore also questioned consumers about their top considerations in selecting a Mobile TV service. Not surprisingly, approximately 71 percent of the respondents said that "cost of service" was a top consideration. However, 67 percent of respondents who are interested in subscribing to Mobile TV also said that they would be willing to watch sponsored advertisements in return for free subscriptions, while 64 percent also favored a test period before committing to a subscription.
Americans also indicated that they place a high value on the quality of the viewing experience when choosing a Mobile TV service. Half (50 percent) said that "picture quality" was very important, while 47 percent indicated the same for "screen size" and 43 percent for "channel reception."

Source - http://www.cellular-news.com

The Top 10 Asia Pacific Operators in 2006

Over the last few quarters there has been little or no change at the top of the list of the Asia Pacific region's largest operators. China Mobile is still the number one and is still by far the largest mobile operator in the world, with the best part of 300m customers as at December 2006. However, this is not to suggest that the Asia Pacific mobile market is anything other than highly dynamic - five of the ten largest companies in the region were not in the top ten last year and two were barely in the top 20.
The main difference between this year and the end of 2005 is the appearance of no fewer than five companies from the Indian sub-continent, four of them from India itself.
At the end of December, as noted, China Mobile headed the list with 299.9m customers, or 28.7% of the region's 1.05bn total. This, in fact, represents a material loss of regional market share, as one year earlier the number one accounted for over 30% of the region's 817m customers. China Unicom, the world's second largest national operator shared the same fate - but to an even greater degree. It closed the year with a total of 142.4m customers, or 13.6% of the regional total. That's a full two percentage points down on the 2005 figure. This is by far the largest drop in market share in the region and in fact, it is measurable on a global scale - Unicom accounted for 5.86% of 2005's subscribers but only 5.26% of the 2006 total. Only one other member of the top ten - Japan's KDDI - accounted for a declining proportion of the global total year on year.
Japan has two representatives on the list, the aforementioned KDDI and DoCoMo, which is the third largest company in the region. The Japanese number one ended 2006 with 52.2m customers, almost exactly 5% of the regional total. This is a marginal year on year increase, which is mirrored at the global level with a rise from 1.84% to 1.93%. Fourth place is taken by Telkomsel, as it was last year. The Indonesian number one is some way behind DoCoMo, with 35.6m customers, and the main threat to DoCoMo's third place probably comes from further west, from India. Indian companies account for four of the remaining six places and as we shall see in the next section, all are growing dramatically. Bharti is the largest of the four, with 31.97m customers, which gives it fifth place. It was eighth last year. During the last twelve months Bharti has added more than one percent to its regional market share, which has risen from 2.00% to 3.06%. It now has comfortably more than one percent of the global market.

Bharti's growth has been matched by Reliance, which has moved into the top ten from 11th place last year. It ended 2006 with just under 30m customers, or 2.87% regional market share. The next company is on the way down - and perhaps out - of the top ten. KDDI added a fair number of customers to close 2006 with 25.48m, but dropped from fifth to seventh losing relative status along the way. In 2005, it had a 2.60% market share in the region and just under one percent globally; these percentages have now dropped to 2.44% and 0.94% respectively. With numbers eight, nine and ten all growing far faster, a drop to tenth next year seems inevitable. KDDI is helped by the fact that numbers 11 to 16 are all heading in the same (relative) direction.
India's BSNL seems certain to overtake it, if not in the first quarter, then the second. BSNL moved up from 13th to eighth, ending the year with 23.62m customers, for a gain of just under 0.5% in regional market share. However, BSNL's position is not invulnerable and in all probability, it will be overtaken by its national rival Hutch, which Vodafone is in the process of acquiring. Hutch has moved from 16th to ninth, the largest positional gain over the year. It began the period with 1.40% market share and ended it with 2.23%, which equates to 23.3m customers.
Finally, tenth place is taken by Pakistan Mobile, which now has 22.49m customers. It too moved up seven places during the year, but added slightly less to its market share in the process than Hutch.
What of the rest of last year's list? The sub-continentals have relegated them to a position outside the regional top ten and in all probability that is where they will remain from now on. SK Telecom, last year's number six is now eleventh, AIS is down from seventh place to twelfth, Smart has fallen from ninth to 13th and Softbank, the former Vodafone Japan, has collapsed to 16th, after tenth last year. Proportionately, the largest losers were SK and Softbank, which now account for 45bp and 37bp less of the regional market than they did last year.
We should point out here that as at the time of writing we await with baited breath news of the effects of the Indian Department of Telecommunications mobile customer verification procedure. Preliminary figures from CDMA/GSM operator Reliance show that disconnections from unverified accounts amount for 15% of its total base, and the numbers could be worse from the pure GSM companies. However, whilst the Indian operators may fall in the rankings as a result, the cull is a one-off, and there is no doubt that they will quickly recover the lost ground.

Source - http://www.cellular-news.com/story/23077.php

50 million 3G subscribers in Asia Pacific Region

W-CDMA was the fastest growing technology in the Asia Pacific region by customer numbers in 2006, as the base using the GSM-derivative 3G standard grew in size by 97% from 24.7m to 48.7m during the year. GSM customers (excluding W-CDMA) grew in number by 29.8% to reach 815m at the end of December 2006. The two technologies in the GSM family together enjoyed customer growth of 32.3%, trumping the CDMA family whose own variants recorded customer growth of 28.4% in aggregate to reach a total of 150.8m.
Given that customer growth in Asia Pacific as a whole was 28.0% in 2006, the result was that CDMA maintained its share of 14.4% of the customer market in the region in 2006. The proportion of the total accounted for by GSM customers saw a marginal increase from 76.8% to 77.9%, whilst W-CDMA customers made up 4.7% of the total at the end of 2006 versus 3.0% at the end of 2005. Giving the slack was largely the Japanese proprietary PDC technology, whose customer base declined 32.7% during the year, although customers of the continent's remaining AMPS, TDMA and other analogue networks also declined, from 0.15% to 0.06% of the total over the period.

Whilst W-CDMA 3G customers stood on the brink of 50m at the end of 2006, 78% of the total was accounted for by Japan alone. Whilst this is an improvement on the 91% registered at the end of 2005, there were still only just over 10m 3G customers in the total base of over 950m mobile customers in Asia Pacific outside of Japan.
Far more numerous were 3G CDMA customers, who numbered 131m at the end of 2006.
What's more only 19% of these customers resided in Japan, meaning that 3G customers using CDMA technology outside of Japan were more than ten times as numerous as their W-CDMA counterparts at the end of 2006. Of course, such claims depend on including CDMA2000 1x variants in our definition of "3G" here, which some argue is incorrect. If we were to exclude this technology and only include customers of the later CDMA2000 1x EV-DO variant, we find on this definition that there were only 28.8m 3G customers using CDMA technology at the end of 2006, of which 12.5m or 43% were in Japan. Of course the reason for the low 3G penetration, by any standard, is that the technology has not yet been launched in many of Asia Pacific's major markets.

However, 2007 should see developments in this area in both China and India, as well as the first full year of 3G service in Indonesia. The chart below shows the development of 3G customers in Asia Pacific so far.

Source - http://www.cellular-news.com/story/23110.php

Mobile phone users in India to triple by 2011 ?

As per projections of iSuppli Corp -

A) the wireless service subscriber base in India will rise to 484 million by 2011, more than three times the 149.5 million in 2006. India in 2006 emerged as one of the world's fastest-growing wireless telecom markets, with the number of mobile-phone service subscribers in the nation growing to 149.5 million, up from 85 million in 2005. Monthly mobile subscriber additions averaged 5.5 million in 2006, and exceeded 6 million per month by the end of the year. iSuppli Corp. projects that .
The penetration of wireless technologies remains high in urban areas compared to rural regions, where approximately two-thirds of the Indian population resides. As of December 2006, the urban tele-density had grown to more than 40 percent, compared to rural penetration of little more than 2 percent.

B) The growth in wireless subscribers is fueling explosive growth in demand for new phones in India. iSuppli estimates that the number of total new legal handsets sold in India in 2006 was 69.3 million. As the subscriber base continues to expand, India will emerge as the second-largest market in the world after China for mobile handsets in terms of unit shipments. iSuppli estimates that in 2011, approximately 11 percent of the global mobile device unit shipments will be to India.
The Indian mobile phone market in 2006 was dominated by GSM-enabled handsets with 51.7 million out of 68.9 million handsets being GSM enabled.

C) The replacement cycle for mobile phones varies radically by the type of market. In India, handset usage is primarily a voice-centric affair. Therefore, the replacement cycle is longer. However, as handset features gain prominence, the replacement rate is expected to grow to 25 percent by 2011.

D) The blended mobile-phone services Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for the Indian market was estimated to be in the vicinity of US$7 in 2006. As growth picks up in the semi-urban and rural areas, there will be downward pressure on ARPU. iSuppli estimates the ARPU will drop to less than US$5 by 2010.
Data services are slowly starting to gain traction in India. However, iSuppli estimates that data ARPU in India will be extremely low for the foreseeable future. This is because although GPRS and EDGE services have been available in India for quite some time, they have met with limited success. GPRS service first was launched in India in February 2002, while EDGE commenced in July 2004. GPRS is widely deployed in India, while EDGE has been rolled out only in major metropolitan areas and in a few other smaller cities.
In the years to come, EDGE subscribers will grow, but will remain a limited portion of the total subscriber base, iSuppli concludes.

BSNL added over 19.8 lacs GSM subscribers in March 2007

India's largest telecommunications operator by number of subscribers Bharti Airtel has added 1.70 million mobile phone subscribers in March, industry data showed Wednesday.
With this, Bharti's mobile phone subscriber base has reached 37.14 million users, data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India, the body representing all the nine mobile operators using GSM technology, showed.
State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. added the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in March at 1.98 million to take its total subscriber base to 27.43 million.
Hutchison Essar Ltd., in which U.K.'s Vodafone Group recently bought a 52% direct stake, reported an addition of 1.1 million mobile phone users to take its total subscriber base to 26.44 million users at the end of March.
Recently listed Idea Cellular showed a slowdown in growth by adding 370,551 subscribers in March against 568,051 mobile phone users added in February.
The statement didn't give reasons for the slow growth.
Idea's subscriber base at the end of March was 14.01 million cell phone users.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam, another state-run telecommunications company providing services in New Delhi and Mumbai, added 167,992 mobile phone users to take its subscriber base at the end of March to 2.75 million.
All the nine operators using GSM technology put together a reported addition of 6.13 million mobile phone users in March, with the total subscriber base at 121.43 million GSM mobile phone users.

TRAI recommends network infrastructure sharing

The Department of Telecommunication had sought recommendations from TRAI on effective sharing of passive infrastructure (towers etc.). The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) says that it is supporting plans to allow network infrastructure sharing in India. Given the significance of infrastructure sharing the Authority says that it not only considered the issue of passive infrastructure sharing but has given the recommendation regarding active infrastructure sharing and backhaul on a suo-motu basis.


TRAI says that the country would require approximately 330,000 towers by 2010 against the present number of approximately 100,000 towers. Apart from huge investments needed the time taken in roll out could be a major bottleneck in the achievement of 500 million subscribers by 2010. Even if the target is achieved it will only be about 50 per cent of the tele-density with major gaps in the rural areas.
In its recommendation, the Authority has reiterated the urgency of passive infrastructure sharing. The Authority does not prefer any mandated passive infrastructure sharing but has required that the entire process should be transparent and non-discriminatory. The mode of commercial agreement has been left to the telecom service providers but it has reserved the option of prescribing a standard commercial agreement format in future if the process of infrastructure sharing does not become a pattern of planning in the schemes of telecom service providers.
In another major recommendation the Authority has sought amendment in the license condition to allow active infrastructure sharing limited to antenna, feeder cable, Node B, Radio Access Network and transmission systems.
However, the Authority has not favoured sharing of spectrum at this stage.
Another major initiative is backhaul sharing. Considering the importance of backhaul sharing for mobile services in rural and far-flung areas, the Authority has recommended amendment in the license conditions to allow service providers to share their backhaul from Base Trans Receiver Station (BTS) to Base Station Controller (BSC). It has noted that such a sharing is permitted on optical fibre as well as radio medium at certain 'nodes'. However, no sharing of spectrum at Access Network side has been recommended.
In order to provide level playing field and roll out opportunities to all the licensees, the Authority has expanded the scope of financial incentive for passive infrastructure sharing in rural and far-flung remote areas. Accordingly it has recommended that all the licensees in any service areas should qualify for financial subvention schemes meant for rural areas though at reduced scale compared to the winner in the tender process of USOF Administration. The Authority has also recognised the need to encourage use of non-conventional energy sources and has recommended to the DOT to finalise suitable schemes in consultation with the concerned Ministry so as to resolve the critical power availability issue.

Source - cellular-news.com

Hutchison Essar Planning US$2 Billion GSM Network Tender?

India's Hutchison Essar is reported to be pressing ahead with a tender for GSM equipment which could be worth as much as US$2 billion. The tender is expected to go ahead, even though the problematic purchase of a majority stake in the firm by Vodafone is mired in controversy about India's cap on foreign shareholder.

The company would roll out extra capacity in the existing 16 circles (licensed areas) and was also factoring in the proposed launch of operations in six Spacetel circles acquired from the Essar group last year. Spacetel has a letter of intent from the Department of Telecom to operate in North East, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, and Jammu and Kashmir where Hutchison Essar is not present.
Hutchison Essar ended last year with some 23.3 million subscribers, giving the company a market share of just over 16%.


Source - Economic Times

Telecom New Zealand (TNZ) opposes Governments plan to split it into three companies

Telecom New Zealand (TNZ), the nation's dominant carrier, proposed selling off its copper-line network rather than submit to a government- imposed scheme that would split the company three ways.
The government plan supposedly is designed to foster competition, but TNZ says it would destroy the carrier. TNZ and the government have been sparring over some sort of restructuring since last summer. The government, in a plan that went to the New Zealand Parliament and was published in a final form last week, wants to chop the company up into a trio of units - wholesale, retail and the copper-wire telephone network - all of which would remain part of TNZ. This scheme will be forced on TNZ by 2010. In theory, the New Zealand government's plan is based on what happened to BT in the U.K.

TNZ Chairman Wayne Boyd unveiled TNZ's plan to simply sell off its copper lines. It could cost TNZ more than $240 million to implement the government plan, forcing it to hire 700 extra workers plus incurring substantial ongoing costs.
Instead, Boyd proposed that TNZ simply sell off its copper network, which reaches 1.4 million of New Zealand's 1.7 million households. what price TNZ might expect to get for the network, which is said to have a theoretical book value of $1.5 billion remains a question mark. One possibility floated was also that, rather than selling the network, TNZ would instead cut it in half, creating a separate company with existing TNZ shareholders receiving pro rata shares in the new company.
According to TNZ, selling the network will create "a structurally separated access network company that would have the ability to earn a commercial rate of return, a simpler separation model so resources can focus on faster delivery of local loop unbundling and naked DSL, downstream de-regulation to enable telecom retail to compete and innovate, and committed broadband network investment from telecom."
Boyd also argued that the government plan took no account of emerging fiber technology, which is replacing copper and which would leave TNZ with a network unit that couldn't compete in the emerging environment.

Banks and Telcos - Partnerships of future?

Reports from Italy suggest that a group of local banks are looking to form a consortium which would become the largest shareholder in the country’s dominant telco, Telecom Italia. Intesa Sanpaolo and Mediobanca are hoping to gather together other local investors to win control of up to 29.9% of the operator, local business daily Milano Finanza reports. The consortium may include AT&T Inc and América Móvil, which are looking to take 33% each in Olimpia, a holding company which has an 18% stake in Telecom Italia; the Olimpia stake is being sold by Italian industrial group Pirelli.

Banking and Telecom services can reap in wonderful partnerships. Does this gives hint for other Telcos or service providers?

Emerging trends in mobile advertising and marketing

Recently released study from ABI Research projects the mobile advertising and marketing market to reach $3 billion by end 2007 and expand to $19 billion in 2011.
As per the study - "Mobile advertising and marketing is a risky, albeit enticing business Unlike the PC, a mobile device offers a uniquely personalized communications channel. Carriers worldwide have quite a bit of information about their end-users: name, sex, age, geographical location. And depending on the handset and plan their users have purchased, the carriers probably also know something about their economic status and credit record. But they don't like to release this information to third parties because they want to protect and control their customers,"
However, early-adopting brands in the US are still in the process of testing the water. They don't typically allocate a set percentage of their annual budgets to mobile. In turn, major ad agencies are still relatively inexperienced with mobile marketing campaigns, and reluctant to utilize location-based services and technologies such as MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) and mobile search that are still in the early stages of deployment. This new study also indicates the reluctance of major ad agencies to maximize mobile advertising as part of their campaigns. But they have to rethink the way they do business considering the current market landscape composed of people who are dependent, to a point addicted, on their mobile phones for daily survival.

Gaming applications spinning money for Japanese Telco

KDDI's wireless data service, powered by BREW, continues to spur the demand for mobile applications in the Japanese market. In January 2007, KDDI subscribers downloaded more than seven million BREW applications to their mobile phones. The cumulative number of BREW application downloads is now more than 160 million since KDDI first launched BREW in February 2003. Gaming has proven to be one of the most active areas of mobile downloads. According to KDDI, its catalog of high-quality mobile games has grown from 2,000 applications in January 2006 to more than 3,000 gaming applications in January 2007.

Are the telcos ready for the next revolution of the information age - Mobile TV

Leading research firm Gartner predicts that Mobile TV will be an opportunity for operator to replace dwindling voice revenue. Mobile TV will become a mainstream service in most developed markets by 2010 with close to half a billion subscribers worldwide.
The marketplace for mobile TV will vary widely by country and will be shared between TV services that are delivered via cellular and broadcast methods. TV services over cellular will grow from 38 million users in 2007 to 356 million in 2010. TV broadcasting will reach 133 million subscribers by 2010 - due in the main to the growing availability of broadcast-enabled phones - with Japan as the region leading the way followed by Western Europe.

The uptake of mobile TV services will grow at a considerable rate over the next few years, but most subscribers will receive mobile TV as part of their mobile subscription, Garner says.
Gartner estimates that only 30 percent of the total number of mobile TV subscribers will ask for the service while 70 percent will receive it as part of their service bundle.
The bundling of Mobile TV services together with questionable early demand for premium content and advertising-funded free TV services will mean that in the short term at least, revenue from mobile TV will be depressed.

In the long run however Gartner predicts that it still has the potential to be a major overall average per revenue per unit (ARPU) component.
Gartner expects TV services over cellular to show revenue of just over USD 100 million in 2006, growing to USD 15 billion by 2010. said Ms Milanesi. Revenue from broadcast TV will grow from USD 200 million to 10.8 billion over the same period.
Consequently, Gartner is advising operators to consider revenue models for mobile TV carefully. According to Ms Milanesi, rather than competing on tariffs, they should instead focus on creating a unique ‘Mobile TV experience’ in order to attract an increasing number of subscribers.

“The most successful operators where mobile TV is concerned will be those that treat it as a long-term opportunity, not a quick fix.”

Mobile TV Subscribers, Worldwide, 2006-2010
Transport Cellular Broadcasting Total
2006 10 942 000 5 972 500 16 914 500
2007 37 76 700 21 872 300 59 640 000
2010 356 058 700 132 692 800 488 751 500

Source: Gartner

Japan to have 50m wallet phones by 2010

Eurotechnology Japan KK estimates that within this year about 30 million phones in Japan will be wallet phones which can serve as electronic cash, mobile credit cards, ATM cards, apartment keys and train tickets.
The consulting house predicts that if current adoption rates continue about 50 million wallet phones be in the hands of subscribers in Japan around 2010.
Wallet phones are likely to change the face of the credit card industry, and create new industries. This impact is only starting now.
Eurotechnology Japan calls wallet phones innovation and disruption for established industries, such as credit cards.
Wallet phones in principle can take over all functions, which our wallet has. Wallet phones enable mobile operators to enter new industries, especially the payment and credit card industries.

Telcos in Chaina and Germany face union problems

Executive members of the state-run Chunghwa Telecom Co. Workers' Union have charged that telco's management of ongoing "inhumane" worker layoffs aimed at cutting costs. At the same time in Europe a German labor union sanctioned brief walkouts in protest of plans by Deutsche Telekom to institute longer hours and lower pay for thousands of workers.

In China, protesters demanded that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), which holds a 36-percent stake in Chunghwa, should replace its designated chairman, Ho Chen-tan. Workers claim Ho has resorted to "inhumane" means "of all kinds" since 2006 to lay off workers in order to "please" foreign investors. If Ho is not replaced, the union threatens to mobilize 5,000 workers to protest at the ministry headquarters May 1.
According to the workers union, some 1,600 workers were scheduled to be pink-slipped this month, with Chunghwa Telecom Workers' Union Secretary-General Chuang Ping-tang saying the carrier has a "layoff quota" that includes forcing "targeted" workers to quit by changing work schedules and duties with no prior notice. Apparently, anxiety is so high among Chunghwa workers that one generator-room technician committed suicide last year.
Chinese legislators have criticized highly profitable carrier ($1.2 billion last year) for violation of an agreement it signed with the workers' union in 2005 when it began the process of privatization. That agreement stipulated that no workers were to be laid off during the first five years of privatization.

In Europe, some 1,000 call-center representatives and technical-service members of Germany's ver.di service workers' union, located at six Deutsche Telekom sites, staged brief "warning strikes" lasting for one shift in protest of the incumbent's proposed plan to transfer as many as 50,000 staffers to a new service unit, called T-Service. (Apparently, these targeted mini-strikes are used by German unions to show they mean business while not disrupting business too much.) Workers claim the carrier plans to amend workers' labor contracts to secure more hours at less pay.
Last month, Deutsche Telekom announced that, effective July 1, its call-center activities, technical customer service and operative units would be "integrated in three units." In the collective bargaining, which is beginning now, Deutsche Telekom is seeking to negotiate service-oriented employment conditions with ver.di and a payment structure that is in line with the market. In return, Deutsche Telekom has signaled its willingness to make an early extension to the agreement to avoid compulsory redundancies, which expires on Dec. 31, 2008.
As such, the carrier wants to increase the work week from 34 hours to at least 38 hours. Gradually, and in a socially considerate manner, pay levels are also to be moved closer to the market level.

Erricsson aims growth via multimedia division

As per an interview given to the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, a Swedish daily, Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg has said that he sees more acquisitions on the horizon to grow the firm's multimedia division. He said that networking equipment will continue to be Ericsson's largest business over the next five years. Recent acquisitions include a Norwegian digital broadcast systems maker and an IP messaging components company. Svanberg is quoted saying, "There will be more acquisitions on the multimedia side. We do not need to take a breath just because we have made several acquisitions." In addition, he said the Alcatel-Lucent merger has helped Ericsson with the merger of two competitors in one.

Idea cellular signs a ten year IT outsourcing contract with IBM

IBM has landed a ten-year IT outsourcing contract worth an estimated $600-$800 million from Idea Cellular, India's fifth largest cellular carrier. The exact value is based on Idea revenues, and could potentially grow into the billion dollar range. The deal is believed to position IBM as the number one player in telecoms IT outsourcing in India. If follows a somewhat similar 10-year revenue-sharing deal it snagged in 2004 from mobile market share leader Bharti Airtel Ltd. to manage its core IT infrastructure. That deal was estimated at $750 million when it was signed but, with the Indian cellular market literally exploding estimates are now that it may be worth $1.5 billion to IBM.
Idea had 13.6 million subscribers at the end of February, compared to Bharti's 35.4 million. However the deal with IBM looks to be more extensive than the one signed by its bigger rival. In addition to managing Idea's IT infrastructure, the pact calls for IBM to do an "end-to-end transformation" of Idea's business critical processes including billing, revenue assurance, and credit collection, subscriber management, business intelligence, fraud management, customer relationship management, e-billing and payment, and customer self care.
If all goes as planned, Idea hopes that hiring IBM will spur its growth and, the two companies said, IBM's incentive to see that happen is that the fee it receives is based on a "risk reward" revenue sharing plan. Details of that formula were not disclosed, but IBM will apparently win its biggest payoff if Idea beats a set of revenue predictions included in the contract between the two.
The move to hire IBM comes as Idea begins an aggressive rollout, funded by its recent IPO in which it raised $500 million.
At IBM the Idea contract is part of an effort to win more business within India, where it now employs about 53,000 people - second only to the U.S. where it has around 125,000 workers - and is investing $6 billion over the three years through 2009 to expand service centers in the country. However most of the business at those service centers is from global accounts. Sales to companies in India currently account for less than 1 percent of IBM global revenue.

With 341 FTTH service providers, USA leads Japan in Fiber-to-the-Home growth rate

According to a new study jointly released by the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the number of homes hooked up directly to fiber has nearly doubled during the past year in USA.
The study, says that nearly 8 million homes now are passed by fiber, up from 4 million a year ago. Of those, 1.3 million are connected to the fiber, better than double the 671,000 that were connected in March 2006. Verizon's FiOS remains the leader of the U.S. FTTH business, accounting for nearly all of the 899,500 homes connected to fiber by incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs). According to study, there are 341 other U.S. FTTH providers, each with an average of 1,249 connections. In fact, small rural telephone companies are actually leading the way in terms of penetration - with 3 percent of their combined customer base now connected via FTTH.
The study however did not discuss the issues surrounding the speed of Verizon's FTTH rollout that, by many estimates, is moving more slowly than had once been planned.
The research firm also notes that, while Japan has more FTTH connections than does the United States, the growth rate in America now is higher.