Twitter Ahead of Facebook on Mobile Ads

EMarketer, a market research group, put Twitter’s 2012 mobile revenue at 129.7 million US dollars, versus 72.7 million dollars for Facebook, but projected the two would reverse positions next year, with Facebook recording 387 million dollars in mobile sales and Twitter 272.6 million dollars. source: The Financial Times

Almost 500 Million Androids Sold

Google said it is now activating 1.3 million Android devices a day, of which 70,000 are tablets. The figure marks a 30% increase on the 1 million-a-day milestone reached in June this year and brings the total installed Android base to 480 million worldwide. source: Mobile Business Briefing

Nokia Unveils Windows 8 handsets

Nokia unveiled its first smartphones running Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 operating system: The Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820. Nokia said the Lumia 920 has a 8.7 megapixels camera sensor and "PureMotion HD+ display technology, powering its generous 4.5-inch screen with the fastest, brightest, most-sensitive and highest resolution display ever seen in this market." Even with this display, Nokia said it can play videos for up to six hours thanks to its 2000mAh battery - the largest yet in a Nokia handset.

Nokia said both handsets support wireless charging and "will be available in select markets in pentaband LTE and HSPA+ variants later this year. Prices and release dates will be revealed in separate, later announcements." source: Nokia statement

NTT DOCOMO Expands Android LTE Range

NTT DOCOMO unveiled three new smartphones and two new tablets compatible with its LTE mobile service, for launch in or after September. The Tokyo-based operator said all models are capable of a maximum downlink speed of 75 Mbps and run the Android 4.0 operating system. It added that three of the five models are compatible with "the NOTTV V-high multimedia broadcasting service, including the first NOTTV-compatible GALAXY tablet."

On August 20th, DOCOMO announced that it had more than five million LTE subscribers. The service was launched at the end of 2010. source: DOCOMO statements 

Unicom Claims Market Share Gain

China Unicom said that its operating revenues rose 20% year-on-year in the first half of 2012 to 121.69 billion Chinese yuan (19.14 billion US dollars). Service revenues rose 13.3% fueled by a 23.4% lift in mobile revenues. Unicom claimed to have gained 1.6 percentage points of market share over the 12 months to June 30th, giving it 23.1% of the Chinese telecoms market.

Unicom attributed most of the growth to a sharp rise in 3G service revenues, as its 3G subscriptions rose 140% year on year to more than 57.5 million. source: China Unicom presentation

Mobile Data Momentum for China Telecom

China Telecom said that its operating revenues rose 14.8% year-on-year in the first half of 2012 to 138.02 billion Chinese yuan (21.73 billion US dollars). Excluding sales of mobile devices, the telco's operating revenues climbed 11.2% to 126.58 billion yuan.

China Telecom reported that it now has 144 million mobile connections (including almost 51 million 3G connections), representing a net addition of 17.71 million from the end of last year. The total number of wireline broadband subscribers reached 83.70 million, representing a net addition of 6.89 million from the end of last year.

Selling both the iPhone and low cost smartphones (about 1,000 yuan or 155 dollars), the company said: "In the first half of the year, mobile data revenue was 19.27 billion yuan, representing an increase of 46.7% over the same period last year. Mobile data revenue accounted for 45.3% of the mobile service revenue, which is at an industry-leading level." source: China Telecom statement

China Mobile Moves Down a Gear

China Mobile said that its operating revenue rose 6.6% year-on-year to 266.53 billion Chinese yuan (41.91 billion US dollars) in the first half of 2012. That compares with 7.8% growth in the first quarter of 2012.

The operator said that voice usage was up 9.2% and wireless data traffic climbed 51.6% as 3G customers reached 67 million, up from 35 million a year earlier. source: China Mobile presentation

Deutsche Telekom Leans on Broadband

Deutsche Telekom reported a revenue decline of 3% year-on-year on an organic basis to 14.38 billion euros in the second quarter of 2012. In Germany, revenues fell 3.1% and in the U.S., service revenues declined 6.1%.

Still, DT said customers for its Entertain IPTV service rose 41% to 1.83 million, while retail fiber customers rose 59% to 722,000. source: Deutsche Telekom presentation