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Tag: telecom

  • China Unicom aims to turnaround despite record slump in 1H profit

    China Unicom aims to turnaround despite record slump in 1H profit

    China Unicom, the country’s second largest mobile carrier by subscribers, is expecting a gradual turnaround as soon as next year after the company reported its largest slump in first-half net profit since 2000.

    Unicom chairman and CEO Wang Xiaochu said “a more solid foundation has been built for healthy development in the future with stronger growth momentum.”

    “The company’s most difficult time was over,” Wang told a media briefing in Hong Kong on Wednesday. “We expect a sales turnaround in November and December, and a profit turnaround next year.”

    Unicom announced on Wednesday that its January-June net profit reached 1.43 billion yuan ($216 million), down 79.6% from a year earlier, in line with apreliminary estimate in July. EBITDA fell 18.2% to 41.28 billion yuan while revenue dipped 3.1% to 140.26 billion yuan.

    But the results nonetheless marked a significant improvement of the 3.36 billion yuan loss – excluding the gain from the tower asset disposals – recorded during the second half of last year.

    Unicom blamed the poor interim results on hefty costs resulting from increased tower costs and heavy expenses to market its 4G network and services.

    According to Unicom, the company saw up to 15% fee increase for using China Tower, as well as electricity tariffs and property rental hikes during the first half of this year.

    Meanwhile the delays in building the LTE network for 4G services also led to substantial increase in marketing costs, with sales and marketing expenses in the first half racking up 17.1% on the year to 17.1 billion yuan, while handset subsidies jumped 43.5% to 1.756 billion yuan.

    “Our biggest problem is having missed almost two years to become well-geared for the 4G era,” Wang said.

    Biggest rival China Mobile has been offering 4G service using TD-LTE technology since December 2013. China Unicom and China Telecom, however, were only granted a license to conduct hybrid FDD and TDD LTE network trial in June 2014.

    Despite that, Wang said the company achieved initial success in turning around the unfavorable conditions in business development, by mitigating the underlying shortcomings in areas such as network, terminals, channels, services, IT, systems and mechanisms. This includes focusing its mobile business on 4G and driving availability of 4G handsets and accelerating 4G network rollout through partnership with China Telecom.

    As a result the company achieved a net addition of 8.39 million mobile subscribers during the period. This compares favorably to the operator’s performance last year, when the company recorded net losses of customers for consecutive months.

    Unicom also saw its 4G base grow to reach 72.42 million as of June, thanks to “improvement in 4G network quality, terminal market share and competitiveness.” Yet this number still far behind China Mobile’s 430 million 4G subscribers.

    Unicom and China Telecom signed an agreement in January to push through a five-pronged collaboration, which embraces costs sharing on 4G network build-outs in rural areas and promotion of the so-called “six-mode” smartphones that are compatible with all networks.

    Wang said the collaboration is necessary as Unicom’s network could now support 63% of the mobile handsets in the market, up from 40% at the end of last year. The partnership with China Telecom on 4G infrastructure sharing also helped Unicom achieved 3 billion yuan savings in capex, he added.

    Unicom will continue to push forward comprehensive and strategic cooperation with China Telecom on areas including mobile and fixed infrastructure sharing, Wang added.

    To recoup the lost ground in 4G from China Mobile and China Telecom, Unicom has earmarked 30 billion yuan for 4G network deployment in the second half of the year, with plans to increase the number of its 4G base stations to 680,000 by year-end, up from 280,000 last year.

    China Mobile last week posted a 5.6% increase in net profit to 60.6 billion yuan in the first six month of this year.

    Smaller rival China Telecom will announce its 2016 interim results on August 26.

  • Spark New Zealand opposes Vodafone-Sky merger

    Spark New Zealand opposes Vodafone-Sky merger

    Spark New Zealand has revealed it is formally opposing rival Vodafone New Zealand’s planned merger with Sky Network Television.

    The operator announced it has made a submission to competition regulator the Commerce Commission opposing the proposed merger on the grounds that Spark feels it is not in the best interest of consumers.

    Spark GM for regulation John Wesley-Smith said based on Sky’s current wholesale market arrangements for premium sports content, the company has told the Commerce Commission that the merger should not go ahead in its current form.

    “Sky has a monopoly on rights for premium ‘national sports’ in New Zealand. Given Kiwis’ love of these sports, they are ‘must have’ rights for media content providers,” he said.

    “Sky’s business model seems increasingly focused around sports, which underlines how effective their monopoly is in this space. The proposed merger with Vodafone is likely to entrench that monopoly, and that’s something all New Zealanders should be concerned about.”

    He said Spark has previously abandoned an earlier reselling deal with Sky three years ago because it was not financially viable, and it relied on an outdated distribution model involving reselling Sky boxes for pay TV services that no longer works for the operator’s customers.

    “We believe if the Commerce Commission blocked the proposed merger, Sky would be forced by commercial realities to make all of its sports content available online and on-demand – and via wholesale arrangements with lots of parties that help distribute this content to New Zealand consumers,” he said.

    Sky and Vodafone announced a proposed NZ$3.44 billion ($2.5 billion) reverse takeover deal in June involving Sky Network TV buying the operator in exchange for a 51% stake in the combined company.

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  • India to capture 13.5% of smartphone sales by 2019

    India to capture 13.5% of smartphone sales by 2019

    India is on track to corner a 13.5% share (approximately 180 million smartphones in circulation) of the total global smartphone market by 2019, up from 7.5% today.

    This was revealed by a joint study conducted by the Associated Chambers of Chambers of Comerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and KPMG.

    The study noted that the advent of affordable smartphones designed for the Indian user and low-cost data connectivity options, more people are shifting to smartphones and mobile Internet.

    The average selling price of a smartphone in India in 2015 was 12,285 rupees ($183.70), a 25% year-on-year increase. The affordable models sell between 3,000 rupees and 10,000 rupees ($44.80 to $149.50).

    “The smartphone shipments in India grew a healthy 23% annually in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the global growth, which stalled for the first time ever since smartphones first began to sell,” ASSOCHAM said in a report posted in its website.

    “The increase in smartphone sales has changed the face of e-commerce industry in India in the last two years,” it added. “Mobile transactions accounted for 41% of total e-commerce sales in 2014. Developing a mobile (sometimes mobile only) strategy has been an important agenda for many of the leading e-commerce players in the country over the last two to three years.”

    The government has launched its ‘Digital India’ initiative in July 2015 for the different stakeholders to work together to transform the economy. Several international device vendors have also set up manufacturing facilities in India, supporting the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative aimed at boosting local manufacturing.

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  • 350 gigabit networks have been launched worldwide

    350 gigabit networks have been launched worldwide

    There have now been at least 350 gigabit-speed network deployments globally across wireline and wireless technologies, according to Viavi Solutions.

    The network testing company’s new Gigabit Monitor database shows that there have to date been a further 164 deployments announced or under construction.

    But Asia is behind the curve in terms of deployments – while North America has the largest share with 61%, and Europe is second with 24%, APAC, MEA and South America together only make up the remaining 15%.

    Fiber is the most dominant gigabit technology, accounting for 85% of launched networks. Nearly all of the remainder, and 11% of the total, are based on HFC, while the final 3% are based on LTE-A.

    Meanwhile 37 operators have announced plans to deploy 5G once the technology becomes available, with five planning a pre-standard debut as early as next year.

    “The gigabit revolution is in full swing and faster speeds can’t come soon enough to feed an insatiable appetite for bandwidth,” Viavi CTO Sameh Yamany said.

    “There are more than 20 billion connected devices and that number is continually increasing. For the consumer, there are obvious benefits. For society as a whole, research also shows that widely available broadband can be a driver for growth and jobs. And with a 100-fold increase in speed, service providers will need to ensure that their ecosystems are ready for the massive network evolution required to deliver the customer experience they envision.”

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  • China Telecom taps Nokia to expand 4G coverage

    China Telecom taps Nokia to expand 4G coverage

    China Telecom has contracted Nokia to enhance the operator’s 4G coverage and capacity to meet growing subscriber demand.

    The companies have signed an agreement to expand the deployment of 4G in 19 provinces nationwide, which will include preparing China Telecom’s network for the planned launch of VoLTE services next year.

    Nokia will provide equipment including its Flexi MultiRadio base stations for the deployment, as well as project management, network design and installation and hardware and software maintenance services.

    The agreement covers the provinces of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Hunan, Hubei, Guangxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Heilongjiang, Hebei, Henan, Sichuan, Anhui, Liaoning, Guizhou, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.

    China Telecom added 31 million 4G users during the first six months of 2016 alone, taking its total to 90 million from an overall mobile subscriber base of nearly 207 million.

    Last year 4G traffic meanwhile grew more than sixfold, and is expected to account for more than 90% of the operator’s total mobile data traffic by 2017.

    “This agreement with China Telecom builds on our long history of collaboration. Our deep-rooted knowledge of the Chinese market will enable China Telecom to meet the demands of an ever-growing and dynamic 4G subscriber base,” Nokia Networks China head Mike Wang said.

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  • Telstra to invest $2.3b to improve the customer experience

    Telstra to invest $2.3b to improve the customer experience

    Australia’s Telstra has revealed plans to invest up to A$3 billion ($2.3 billion) over the next few years on improving the customer experience following a wave of recent network outages.

    The operator has revealed plans to increase its capex to sales ratio to 18%, the highest since the operator was building its 3G network in the 2008-09 financial year.

    Telstra CEO Andrew Penn said the investments include plans for consumers, SMBs, domestic and international enterprise users, governments and wholesale customers, as well as both fixed and mobile networks.

    Short term actions to address frequent customer complaints will be followed by more significant and longer term investments aimed at digitising to improve the customer experience and reducing costs.

    “There are a number of immediate actions that we believe will improve customer experiences. We will simplify products and platforms – we need to retire old technology and systems that slow down and complicate how customers are served,” Penn said.

    He said investments will be aimed at evolving the network with new technologies including virtualization and increased automation. The company aims to develop a flexible, software-defined network architecture.

    The move comes as Telstra seeks to win back customers following a series of hardware-related network outages that were heavily reported in Australian media.

    Telstra had already committed A$50 million towards installing new monitoring equipment and improving the capacity of its mobile network to handle large volumes of simultaneous re-registrations.

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  • India’s spectrum mega-auction set for Sept 29

    India’s spectrum mega-auction set for Sept 29

    India’s Department of Telecom has set the date for India’s largest spectrum auction to date, announcing that bidding will commence on September 29.

    The massive auction will be preceded by a pre-bid auction on Saturday. The government has also pledged to make the spectrum available to the winners within 30 days of receiving an upfront payment.

    In total more than 2,300 MHz of spectrum divided into 126 blocks will be auctioned next month. Analysts expect bidding to reach as high as $14.8 billion, while the government believes bidding could reach up to $83 billion.

    But operators have been less than enthusiastic, with Airtel’s CEO recently announcing that the company sees no “great need” for more spectrum, and Telenor revealing that its Indian subsidiary will sit out of the auction.

    Specturum in the 700-MHz, 800-MHz, 900-MHz, 1800-MHz, 2100-MHz and 2300-MHz bands will be put on the block.

    Winners of spectrum in the three lower bands will be required to pay at least 25% of their total bid within 10 days of the auction concluding, while the other bands will require a 50% down-payment.

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  • Idea Q1 profit slumps 36.1%

    Idea Q1 profit slumps 36.1%

    India’s Idea Cellular has reported a steep 36.1% decline in net profit for its fiscal first quarter to 4.97 billion rupees ($74.4 million), as spectrum and investment costs weighed down the operator’s bottom line.

    But Idea, the nation’s third largest mobile operator, also revealed that its efforts to cut down on promotional offers helped revenue grow 7.9% to 94.86 billion rupees.

    The operator lost around 700,000 mobile subscribers during the quarter, taking its total to 183.2 million, and voice MOUs declined by 1.1% sequentially to 199.3 billion.

    By contrast, due to its high investments in the mobile data segment, Idea reported its highest ever net mobile data user additions of 5 million.

    The operator also recorded mobile data volume growth of 13.2% to 93.1 petabytes, while mobile data revenue grew by 4.1% to contribute 20.6% of total service revenue.

    Over the period, the company added 5,296 4G sites, taking its total to nearly 20,000. The operator’s 4G network now covers a total population of over 150 million across nearly 2,000 towns and villages. The company ended June with over 1.8 million active 4G subscribers.

    Overall 2G, 3G and 4G mobile data penetration has reached 49 million, and Idea reported a blended mobile data ARPU for the quarter of 142 rupees.

    Idea’s capex for the quarter meanwhile reached 10.8 billion rupees, in line with the operator’s projected capex budget for the full financial year of between 65 billion and 70 billion rupees.

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  • Unicom warns to expect an 80% profit slump for H1

    Unicom warns to expect an 80% profit slump for H1

    China Unicom has warned it expects to report an 80% year-on-year slump in net profit for the first half of the year as a result of a surge in expenses.

    In a stock exchange filing, the operator said that selling and marketing expenses grew significantly during the six month period.

    New tower usage fees resulting in the outsourcing of tower assets to new joint venture China Tower, higher energy charges and property rentals also contributed to the growth of expenses.

    China Unicom reported a profit for 1H15 of 6.99 billion yuan, so the company is estimating a profit fo the period of around 1.4 billion yuan.

    The operator noted that this is nonetheless a significant improvement of the 3.36 billion loss – excluding the gain from the tower asset disposals – recorded during the second half of last year.

    The filing also states that Unicom’s mobile business has “achieved initial success in overcoming operational challenges.”

    As a result the company achieved a net addition of mobile subscribers of 8.39 million during the period. This compares favorably to the operator’s performance last year, when the company recorded net losses of customers for consecutive months.

  • Thailand’s Dtac calls for frequency act amendments

    Thailand’s Dtac calls for frequency act amendments

    Dtac’s new chief corporate affairs officer Paradai Theerathada gave evidence at the National Legislative Assembly committee on the new National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Act.

    Paradai joined Dtac from TMB (formerly Thai Military Bank) on June 26.

    Dtac has called for an early auction clause with the new licence taking effect the day after the old licence expires.

    This would solve the problem of uncertainty for operators and users alike who fear that their SIMs may be rendered dead after an auction.

    Paradai pointed out that without a provision for an early auction, Thailand has ended up with extension after extension in the name of consumer protection that benefits nobody. An early auction would also mean that the state gets the licence fees earlier too.

    Dtac also calls for the law to enable spectrum trading. The current draft only allows for spectrum sharing and spectrum leasing. Paradai said that spectrum trading would allow a new entrant to enter the market without waiting for an auction and would allow for a graceful exit with the spectrum sold off if need be.

    Paradai said that spectrum trading would keep incumbents on their toes and lead to better service as a new entrant with a better business plan could enter the market at any time.

    He said that rules would need to be put into place to prevent someone bidding for spectrum to sell off with no intention of operating a business.

    Finally Dtac reiterated its call for a clear spectrum roadmap going forth.

    Thailand still has an acute shortage of spectrum. Of the 1960 MHz of spectrum the ITU has earmarked for data by 2020, Thailand only has 320 MHz available today. Paradai called for clear, five year plans, open to the public so that operators can plan their investments in advance.

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  • HTHKH 1H profit falls 26%

    HTHKH 1H profit falls 26%

    Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings (HTHKH) has reported a 26% year-on-year decline in net profit for the first half of the year to HK$376 million ($48.5 million), due to weaker than expected smartphone sales.

    Total revenue fell 52% to HK$5.42 billion, with mobile revenue down a significant 62% to HK$3.47 billion.

    Hardware revenue shrank from HK$7.15 billion to HK$1.49 billion as a result of a lack of popular smartphones to sell during the period, the company said in its first-half report.

    Roaming revenue also declined 19%, or HK$87 million, contributing to a 6% decline in mobile net customer service revenue to HK$1.97 billion.

    HTHKH ended June with around 3.1 million customers in Hong Kong and Macau, including about 1.5 million postpaid customers. While the company’s postpaid base stayed largely flat compared to 2H15, churn was reduced to 1.3% from 1.9% over the same period.

    Blended local postpaid net ARPU grew 6% year-on-year to HK$168 as the launch of various new infotainment content and data plans resulted in the acquisition of more data centric customers.

    Fixed line service revenue for the half-year period meanwhile grew 4% year-on-year to HK$2.07 billion, due largely to an increase in revenue from the international and local carrier market. This was driven by growing data demand from OTT applications and IoT-related devices.

    Looking ahead, HTHKH chairman Canning Fok said the company is “planning ahead cautiously in the face of economic uncertainty locally and globally, after developing into a multi-play telecommunications service provider that launches a diversity of  products  and services to meet changing customer demand.”

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  • Singtel, Ericsson complete SEA’s first 5G demo

    Singtel, Ericsson complete SEA’s first 5G demo

    Singtel and Ericsson have completed the first live demonstration of 5G prototype technology, achieving a peak throughput of 27.5Gbps.

    The demonstration used Ericsson’s 5G radio prototypes to showcase the capabilities offered by the new networking technology, which also included demonstrating a latency as low as 2ms.

    At the demonstration, Singtel and Ericsson also showcased the world’s first end-to-end low latency live video streaming over 5G.

    Ericsson and Singel signed an MoU last year to collaborate on testing technology candidates for the 5G standard. Last week, the companies completed a live trial of pre-standard License Assisted Access (LAA) technology over Singtel’s 4G network.

    Singtel group CTO Tay Soo Meng said the collaboration is aimed at ensuring the operator’s customers have access to the latest mobile technologies.

    “We strive to upgrade our networks with cutting-edge enhancements, constantly offering our customers all the possibilities that technology brings. Singapore is at the forefront of the most connected cities in the world and now we want to take it to the next level,” he said.

    “5G is very important to the Singtel Group as it will support advanced communication needs. To ensure the Group continues our technology leadership in the mobile communications domain, we are exploring, studying and trialling pre-5G technologies with Ericsson.”

    The operator is preparing for the anticipated standardization of 5G in 2020 by deploying key pre-5G technologies including carrier aggregation, 256QAM and NB-IoT.

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  • Globe targets 95% mobile coverage by end-2018

    Globe targets 95% mobile coverage by end-2018

    The Philippines’ Globe Telecom has laid out a plan to extend mobile coverage to 95% of the nation’s municipalities and cities by end-2018.

    The operator has submitted a proposal with regulator NTC to use the spectrum due to be acquired through the co-purchase of conglomerate San Miguel Corporation’s telecoms assets, including its valuable 700-MHz spectrum, to help achieve its coverage target.

    Under the plan, Globe will deploy around 4,500 SDN-enabled base stations and upgrade the capacity of its existing equipment to improve the customer experience.

    By the end of the year, Globe plans to upgrade around 30% of its network nationwide, or around 2,200 existing cell sites, to support the new spectrum.

    With the submission the operator is implicitly making the case for being allowed to proceed with the purchase of the SMC telco assets.

    Antitrust body PCC plans to conduct a full investigation into the buyout, and the chief of the new Department of Information and Communications Technology recently ordered a spectrum audit as a result of the deal.

    Globe has also committed to providing ultrafast broadband in 2 million households by 2020, and plans to invest $2 billion for its fixed broadband expansion program.

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  • Australia regulates retail access to high-speed networks

    Australia regulates retail access to high-speed networks

    Australian competition regulator ACCC has decided to require most operators of high-speed broadband networks to grant wholesale access to rival providers.

    Fiber and VDSL network services with a downstream data rate of over 25Mbps have been declared, meaning network owners must provide wholesale access on request.

    Where commercial terms cannot be agreed upon, the wholesale access must be provided at a regulated rate of between A$22.14 and A$27 per port per month, or A$17.50 to A$29.27 per Mbps per month.

    Exceptions apply for high-speed broadband services in metro areas, where competition is already effective, and for network operators with fewer than 20,000 customers. There is also a moratorium for specific networks in some areas that need to be reconfigured to support wholesale provision.

    “This is an acknowledgment that all superfast broadband networks – regardless of their size – display natural monopoly characteristics. What this access declaration does is provide retailers with the opportunity to enter superfast broadband markets, and in turn increase competition,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.

    “This decision will also help to simplify and clarify the existing regulations that apply to superfast broadband services, allowing all retail providers to compete on their relative merits, regardless of the technology used, when the network was constructed, or who operates it.”

    In practice, the move also means that competing commercial high-speed broadband networks to the wholesale only National Broadband Network (NBN) will have to compete on a similar footing.

    This is in line with regulations designed to prevent retail providers from cherry-picking by concentrating their deployments only on the most profitable areas, in contrast to the NBN which needs to provide universal access.

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  • SoftBank lifts June quarter profit by 19.1%

    SoftBank lifts June quarter profit by 19.1%

    Japan’s SoftBank lifted its net profit for the June quarter by 19.1% year-on-year to 254.16 billion yen ($2.42 billion), largely as a result of solid growth from the company’s domestic telecoms business.

    Domestic telecoms service revenue grew 5.4% to 761.8 trillion yen following steady growth of the operator’s SoftBank Hikari fiber service. Total FTTH subscribers grew to 2.24 million, from 1.72 million in the previous quarter.

    The company meanwhile grew its mobile subscriber base by 580,000 year-on-year to 32.15 million, with smartphone and tablet subscribers outweighing net losses for feature phones.

    Total ARPU declined by 50 yen to 4,610 yen, but service ARPU increased by 40 yen to 560 yen, reflecting an increase in the number of subscribers to the operator’s content services.

    Revenues from SoftBank’s US subsidiary Sprint meanwhile declined 9.6% year-on-year to 848.09 billion yen, but remained largely flat in US dollar terms.

    SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son assured reporters at an event announcing the company’s results that Sprint is about to turn into a revenue generator for the company after multiple quarters of negatively affecting the company’s results.

    SoftBank paid $21.6 billion to acquire control of Sprint in 2013, and the company has repeatedly insisted that Sprint’s fortunes are about to turn around.

    Now SoftBank is planning another big bet. The operator recently arranged to acquire chipmaker ARM for $31 billion to pursue opportunities in the emerging IoT sector, which Son believes will be the “biggest paradigm shift in human history.”