Sprint's Capex More than Doubles

Sprint said its consolidated net operating revenues rose almost 1% year-on-year to 8.8 billion US dollars in the first quarter of 2013. It said the improvement was primarily due to higher equipment and wireless service revenues, partially offset by a reduction in wireline revenue. 

Sprint reported capital expenditures, excluding capitalized interest of 15 million dollars, of approximately 1.8 billion dollars in the quarter, compared to 800 million dollars in the first quarter of 2012. Wireless capital expenditures were 1.7 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2013, compared to 710 million in the first quarter of 2012, as Sprint implements its "Network Vision" upgrade. source: Sprint statement

MTN Adds Another 6 Million Subs

Pan-Africa mobile operator MTN said it added 6.12 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2013, taking the total to 195.4 million. MTN Group CEO Sifiso Dabengwa said: "This supported growth in traffic volumes and local currency revenue. In South Africa, despite a slow start to the year, MTN maintained its market share and reviewed its market offerings to be more competitive. In Nigeria, MTN continued to record a good performance in a highly competitive market.... The solid performance over the past quarter means we have maintained our guidance for net additions for the full 2013 year at 21 million.” MTN also said that data revenues rose 42% year-on-year. source: MTN statement

Dogfight for Orange in France

France Telecom-Orange said its revenues fell 4.1% year-on-year on a comparable basis in the first quarter to 10.28 billion euros. It blamed 2.3 percentage points of that decline on regulation.

Mobile service revenues fell 8.1% in France and 9.7% in Poland as competition intensifies. The Paris-based group is responding by increasing capital spending. Capex was up 6.5% year-on-year to 1.15 billion euros in the first quarter, as the group accelerates the rollout of LTE and fibre in France. source: FT presentation 

AT&T to Cut Back Capex

AT&T said that its revenues rose 0.9% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis in the first quarter to 31.4 billion US dollars. Total wireless revenues, which include equipment sales, were up 3.4% to 16.7 billion dollars, but total wireline revenues fell 1.8% to 14.7 billion dollars.

“Our wireless network performance continues to be terrific,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. “And that helped drive our best ever first quarter for smartphone sales, improved wireless churn and strong growth in mobile data revenues. We also posted record sales of our U-verse high-speed IP service.

While it continues to expect capital expenditures for 2013 to be about 21 billion dollars, AT&T now expects capital expenditures for 2014 and 2015 each to be about 20 billion dollars, rather than 22 billion. The telco said it is achieving savings through greater integration efficiencies, accelerating LTE build in 2013 and other ongoing initiatives. source: AT&T statement

Ericsson Sees Steady Growth

Ericsson said that it sales increased 7% year-on-year in the first quarter, stripping out the impact of currency movements, to reach 53 billion Swedish krona (8.02 billion US dollars). Sales in the networks division rose 7%, boosted by mobile broadband deployments in the US and Indonesia, while sales in the global services division climbed 9%. source: Ericsson statement

Apple Believes Revenue May Fall

Apple said it expects its revenue in the quarter ending June 30 to be between 33.5 billion and 35.5 billion US dollars. That suggests Apple believes its revenue will probably decline year-on-year for the first time in many years. Its revenue was 35 billion US dollars in the equivalent quarter of 2012. 

In the quarter ended March 30, Apple's revenue rose 11% year-on-year to 43.6 billion US dollars. The California-based company sold 37.4 million iPhones in the quarter, compared to 35.1 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 19.5 million iPads during the quarter, compared to 11.8 million in the year-ago quarter. 

“Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software, and services and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline,”  said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. source: Apple statement

China Mobile Faces Intense Market Competition

China Mobile said its operating revenue climbed 5.7% year-on-year in the first quarter to reach 134.7 billion Chinese yuan (21.8 billion US dollars). That marks a slowdown from 2012 when group revenue rose 6.1% across the year. In the first quarter, average revenue per user fell to 63 yuan (10.2 dollars) from 71 yuan in the previous quarter, as it added a further 16 million connections taking the total to 726 million.

China Mobile said: "Faced with various difficulties and challenges arising from the increasing mobile penetration rate, unprecedentedly intense market competition and more apparent substitution of traditional communication business by new technologies and new businesses, the group persisted with the mantra of ‘‘customers are our priority, quality service is our principle’’."

It added: "Wireless data traffic in the first quarter of 2013 increased by 1.6 times compared to the same period of last year. Key businesses, such as Mobile Mailbox, Mobile Reading and Mobile Video, have maintained a favourable growth momentum." source: China Mobile statement

American Music Downloads Hold Up

Apple had 63% unit share of the U.S. paid music download market in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to research firm NPD Group, followed by AmazonMP3 with 22%. 

According to NPD’s surveys of consumers, 44 million Americans bought at least one song track or album download last year. The research firm said: "That number has remained relatively stable over the past three years, despite the rapid growth of Pandora and other music-streaming options." NPD estimates that average per-buyer spending on music downloads increased 6% year over year  "due largely to increases in music purchasing by teens, along with an increase in the number of consumers purchasing both single song tracks and full albums." source: NPD statement