Millicom close to sale of Asian mobile networks

Millicom, the telecoms firm that operates the Tigo-branded mobile networks in Asia, Africa and Latin America, has said that a number of potential buyers have expressed interest in acquiring its Asian businesses.

Millicom's Asian operations and joint-ventures generated a net profit of US$4 million in the first quarter and revenues of US$68 million, the company said in its statement. According to Wireless Intelligence data, Luxembourg-based Millicom runs three networks in Asia, Tigo in Sri Lanka (2.1 million connections in 1Q09) and Laos (255,000), and Cambodia's Cellcard (2.2 million).
source: GSMA Mobile Business Briefing

Virgin Mobile mulls bid for French 3G license

Virgin Mobile France has confirmed it is studying possibilities to bid for the country's fourth 3G license, including potential partnerships.
source: GSMA Mobile Business Briefing

Vendors target India with customised apps

Major handset vendors such as Nokia, Apple and Research In Motion (RIM) are planning to roll-out customised versions of their mobile application stores for the Indian market, reports India's Economic Times.

The strategy is designed to attract local developers to their respective app store platforms in the world's second-largest mobile market. The report notes that Nokia launched its 'Ovi Store' in India recently, but plans to roll-out a localised version by December. Meanwhile, the report notes that RIM is planning to launch its 'BlackBerry App World' store in India and is also aiming to attract local third-party developers. According to industry sources, Apple, which pioneered the app store concept with its hugely-successful 'App Store,' is also planning a similar strategy to target the Indian market.
source: GSMA Mobile Business Briefing

eMobile set to turn profit in H2

In terms of EBITDA, eMobile is already in the black on a monthly basis, chief executive Sachio Semmoto told Reuters in an interview. "There is a high possibility that we will manage to bring eMobile to a net profit," he said. "The pace of growth is a little faster than we expected. Once we attain profit, we will consider possibilities for maximising returns to our investors," he added.

eAccess was one of three companies granted new mobile licenses by the Japanese government in 2005. eMobile has already gained a 17 percent share of the country's HSPA market (according to Wireless Intelligence), with 1.4 million customers. It launched a 3.6Mb/s HSDPA flat-rate data service in March 2007, steadily moving up to 7.2Mb/s on the downlink as well as launching new HSUPA services, and boasts a connections growth rate far higher than its more established rivals, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank.
source: GSMA Mobile Business Briefing

Mobile usage survey by Lightspeed Research

A multi-country study released by Lightspeed Research (www.lightspeedresearch.com).

Americans (49%) and Britons (30%) were most likely to agree that their mobile phone was now an essential part of their daily life and they’d be lost without it.

Call me – but I won’t call you Perhaps the most interesting result in the survey is that in some markets there are users who never make phone calls from their mobile. In the UK 11% of respondents never make calls; that figure is higher in the US at 13%.
source: 3G.co.uk

How Wi-Fi saved 3G from the iPhone

...the answer is simple enough: traffic offload...
...In other words, Wi-Fi hot spots in cafe and food courts could be transformed into the equivalent of public femtocells...
...PCCW in Hong Kong already has a 3G/Wi-Fi offering for its Netvigator service via a dongle that recommends the best connection (although it doesn't support handoff at the moment).
Interestingly, another element driving 3G operator interest in interacting with Wi-Fi is the iPhone.
In May, for example, SlingBox released an iPhone version of its controversial SlingPlayer app, which allows you to tune into your SlingBox-enabled pay-TV set-top box at home and watch cable TV on a PC or, in this case, an iPhone. AT&T - via Apple - only greenlighted SlingPlayer for its iPhone customers after SlingBox agreed to configure the app to work only through the iPhone's Wi-Fi link, not over AT&T's HSPA network.
Reason: "Slingbox, which would use large amounts of wireless network capacity, could create congestion and potentially prevent other customers from using the network," AT&T said, adding that there were over 20,000 free Wi-Fi hotspots in the US iPhone users could access to sling their video.
A month earlier, AT&T took a similar and more controversial approach to iPhone versions of VoIP apps like Skype and TruPhone. Both apps only work on Wi-Fi links. This time, AT&T was even more candid: "We have no obligation - nor should we have - to facilitate or subsidize our competitors' businesses."
And there you have it: 3G operators that once worried about Wi-Fi cannibalizing their business are now relying on Wi-Fi to keep web-based apps from eating into their business - and their network capacity.
See what they did there?

source: telecomasia.net