Europe Drags Down Telefonica Again

Telefonica said its revenues declined 1.6% in the first quarter of 2013 on an organic basis to 14.14 billion euros. A 3.4% rise in revenues in Latin America was more than offset by a 5.2% decline in Europe.

Telefonica said it will launch the first handsets running the Firefox operating system in the third quarter of this year in Spain, Colombia and Venezuela. It said that five additional countries, including Brazil, will follow in the fourth quarter. "Vendors to launch will be ZTE and Alcatel followed by LG, Huawei and Sony," it added. source: Telefonica presentation 

Sony Predicts 10% Rise in Revenues

Sony said its revenue fell by 3% on a constant currency basis in the quarter ending March 31 to 1.73 trillion Japanese yen (17.45 billion US dollars), as sales declined in its home entertainment and devices divisions. 

However, Sony forecast that its revenues will rise 10.3% in the year to March 31, 2014 to 7.5 trillion yen "primarily due to the depreciation of the yen and an increase in sales in the electronics businesses."

In its mobile phone and computer division, Sony expects sales to increase significantly "primarily due to an anticipated significant increase in unit sales of smartphones and the introduction of high value-added models, as well as due to the introduction of high value-added PCs." source: Sony presentation

Nokia Plans to Sell 100 Million Asha Smartphones

Releasing a new developer platform for its Asha line of smartphones, Nokia said it expects to sell 100 million of the new generation Asha smartphones over "the coming years", beginning with the Nokia Asha 501. Nokia said the new handset will sell for about 99 U.S. dollars before taxes and subsidies from June. Nokia expects the Asha 501 to be available through approximately 60 operators and distributors  in more than 90 countries worldwide. source: Nokia statement

DT Sees Light at the End of the Tunnel

Deutsche Telekom said its revenue fell 4.2% year-on-year on an organic basis in the first quarter of 2013 to 13.83 billion euros.  Revenue declined 1.6% in Germany, 6.9% in the rest of Europe and 7.3% in the U.S. (in dollars).

However, DT said it expects service revenues in Germany to return to underlying growth in 2013. It also claimed to have achieved a "significant improvement in customer metrics and postpaid churn" in its U.S. operation. source: DT presentation

Bharti Sees Sales Slowdown

Bharti Airtel, India' leading mobile operator, said its revenues rose 9% year-on-year in the quarter ending March 31 to 204.5 billion Indian rupees (3.8 billion US dollars), a marked slowdown on the 12% growth it achieved in the year to March 31. Bharti's mobile services business grew 7% in South Asia and 5% in Africa during the quarter.

Bharti said it "continued its investments in India on 3G to enhance coverage and quality through roll out of 8,411 new sites. Wireless data revenues grew by 66% to 22,362 million rupees during the year (to March 31), accounting for 5.4% of the total wireless revenues (3.5% in the previous year)." 

In Africa, Bharti said the telecoms sector was impacted by "economic headwinds especially in the Francophone countries which have strong linkages to the euro area, currency movements and inflation, and political unrest in some countries or regions. Competitive intensity was high especially in Nigeria where the market leader dropped tariffs by almost 30%. Price tables were subdued across Africa, and the average ARPU declined from 6.4 US dollars to 5.3 US dollars. Data usage is growing rapidly, but the revenue base is still small to neutralize the impact of voice revenue decline."

Bharti added: "Airtel Africa’s network transformation continued with expansion of 3G networks (ending with 5,676 sites across 12 countries) and improving the stability of 2G networks. The airtel money service is now offered across 15 countries. The company tied up with major device manufacturers to aggressively drive sales of data enabled handsets, especially 3G, and tablets." source: Bharti Airtel statement 

Facebook Posts a Solid Quarter

Facebook said its revenue in the first quarter rose 38% year-on-year to 1.46 billion US dollars. The California-based company said revenue from advertising was 1.25 billion dollars, up 43% year-on-year, while mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 30% of advertising revenue. Payments and other fees revenue was 213 million dollars in the first quarter.

The social network said daily active users rose 26% year-on-year to 665 million on average for March 2013, while monthly active users rose 23% year-on-year to 1.11 billion as of March 31. Facebook also reported that recently-acquired Instagram reached 100 million monthly active users in the first quarter of 2013. source: Facebook statement

Global Connection Speeds Rise

In the fourth quarter of 2012, the global average Internet connection speed rose 5% quarter-on-quarter to 2.9 Mbps, according to Akamai Technologies. The cloud platform provider said year-over-year, average connection speeds grew by 25%.

Akamai also noted that the fourth quarter of 2012 "saw average connection speeds on surveyed mobile network operators range from a high of just over 8 Mbps to a low of 345 kbps. Eight providers demonstrated average connection speeds in the "broadband" (>4 Mbps) range. Sixty-four more providers delivered average connection speeds greater than 1 Mbps." source: Akamai statement

Unicom Sees Strong Mobile Growth

China Unicom, said its total revenue was 70.6 billion yuan (11.4 billion US dollars), up 15.4% year-on-year, in the first quarter. The equivalent figures for China Mobile were 21.8 billion dollars and a growth rate of 5.7%. Service revenue in Unicom's mobile business was 35.24 billion yuan, up 20.4% year-on-year. Unicom added a net total of 11.4 million mobile subscribers during the quarter. 

China Unicom said it added 11.36 million 3G subscribers during the quarter and the number of 3G subscribers reached 87.82 million on 31 March 2013. For the first quarter of 2013, ARPU per month for the 3G business was 78.2 yuan (12.7 dollars). source: China Unicom statement