Mobile Data Keeps América Móvil Growing

América Móvil said its first quarter revenues totaled 156.2 billion Mexican pesos (13.5 billion US dollars), up 6.3% year-on-year. The Mexico City-based telecoms company said at, constant exchange rates, its revenue from mobile data services increased by 37.8% and its revenue from fixed data services by 7.4%.

However, the pan-Americas telecoms company reported that fixed voice revenues declined 4.3% as revenue reductions in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean more than offset the 3.7% rise observed in South America. However, América Móvil's revenues in the U.S. rose 43.3% year-on-year to 868 million US dollars.

América Móvil said that it added nearly 6 million wireless subscribers and 1.5 million fixed line "revenue generating units" in the first quarter. At the end of March, the company had "231 million wireless subscribers, 13.6 million broadband accesses, 28.7 million landlines and 10.8 million PayTV clients, for a total of 284 million accesses, 12.1% more than a year before." source: América Móvil statement

Regulation Restrains France Telecom

France Telecom said its revenues fell 1.4% year-on-year on a comparable basis to 11.23 billion euros in the first quarter of 2011. Excluding the impact of regulatory measures, the Paris-based company said its revenues would have climbed 0.4%, as its total group customers rose 7% to 215.9 million.

The company's mobile revenues increased 5.9% in France, 7% in Spain, 4.5% in Poland and 5.8% in Africa and the Middle East, excluding Egypt. France Telecom said its capex was equal to 9.6% of revenues, representing 1.08 billion euros in investments, in the first quarter, "in line with the target capex rate of about 13% for the year." source: France Telecom statement

LG Sees Market Share Slide

LG Electronics, a leading mobile phone maker, said revenues in its mobile communications division declined 8.3% year-on-year in the first quarter to 3.38 trillion Korean won (3.15 billion US dollars). LG said that handset shipments fell 10% year-on-year to 24.5 million units. source: LG presentation

RIM Warns of Sales Shortfall

Research in Motion said that it expects its shipments of BlackBerry smartphones in the quarter ending May 28 to be at the lower end of the range of 13.5 million to 14.5 million it forecast in March.

RIM added that lower-than-expected average selling prices are expected to result in revenue that is slightly below the range of 5.2 billion to 5.6 billion US dollars it forecast on March 24 for the quarter. However, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company said it expects shipments of its BlackBerry PlayBook in the quarter to continue to be in line with it previous expectations. source: RIM statement 

HTC Expects Q2 Sales to Double

HTC, a leading maker of smartphones, said that it expects it second quarter revenue to be around 120 billion Taiwanese dollars (4.19 billion US dollars), up 97% year-on-year. It forecast that it will ship between 11 million and 11.5 million handsets in the quarter, more than twice as many as in the second quarter of 2010.

In the first quarter of 2011, HTC's revenues rose 174.5% year-on-year to 104.16 billion Taiwanese dollars, boosted by a 192% year-on-year increase in handset shipments to 9.7 million. source: HTC statement

Smartphone Sales Surge for Samsung

Samsung Electronics said its telecoms sales rose 19% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2011 to 10.64 trillion Korean won (9.96 billion US dollars), driven by a 9% rise in handset shipments to 70 million and an increase in average selling prices. Samsung said that smartphones accounted for 18% of its shipments in the first quarter compared with 14% in the previous quarter.

Samsung said it expects industry handset shipments to rise to 1.5 billion units in 2011 from 1.36 billion in 2010. The Korean company also expects product and price competition in the tablet market to intensify with new model launches. source: Samsung presentation

Sprint's Sales Climb

Sprint, one of the largest mobile operators in the U.S., reported first quarter revenues of approximately 8.3 billion US dollars, which is a 3% increase from the same quarter a year ago. Sprint said the year-over-year improvement "was primarily due to higher ARPU for postpaid and prepaid, growth in the number of prepaid subscribers and higher wireless equipment revenues, partially offset by net losses of postpaid subscribers and lower wireline revenues."

Sprint said that capital expenditures amounted to 555 million dollars in the quarter, compared to 419 million dollars in the first quarter of 2010.  Sprint said it has now launched or announced 22 "4G devices" and offers "4G service" in 71 markets in 28 states. Sprint uses WiMAX to provide its "4G services", which it says are "up to 10x faster" than 3G services running at 600 Kbps. source: Sprint statement

DOCOMO Sees Sharp Fall in ARPU

NTT DOCOMO, Japan's largest mobile operator, said that its operating revenues fell 2.6% year-on-year in the quarter ending March 31 to 1.015 trillion Japanese yen (12.48 billion US dollars).  DOCOMO said that its ARPU in the quarter fell almost 6% year-on-year to 4,760 yen, as a 15% decline in voice ARPU more than offset a 4% rise in packet (data) ARPU.

The Tokyo-based company forecast that rising usage of smartphones will lift its ARPU to 4,890 yen, increasing its total revenues marginally, in the year ending March 31, 2012, to 4.23 trillion yen, up from 4.224 trillion the previous year. As it restores facilities damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake, DOCOMO forecast that it will spend 705 billion yen on capex in the year ending March 31, 2012, compared with 668.5 billion the previous year and 686.5 billion the year before that. source: DOCOMO statement