Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totalled 1.211 billion units in 2009, a 0.9 per cent decline from 2008, according to Gartner, Inc. In the fourth quarter of 2009, the market registered a single-digit growth as mobile phone sales to end users surpassed 340 million units, an 8.3 per cent increase from the fourth quarter of 2008. "The mobile devices market finished on a very positive note, driven by growth in smartphones and low-end devices," said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. ”Smartphone sales to end users continued their strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2009, totalling 53.8 million units, up 41.1 per cent from the same period in 2008. In 2009, smartphone sales reached 172.4 million units, a 23.8 per cent increase from 2008. In 2009, smartphone-focused vendors like Apple and Research In Motion (RIM) successfully captured market share from other larger device producers, controlling 14.4 and 19.9 per cent of the worldwide smartphone market, respectively.” Throughout 2009, intense price competition put pressure on average selling prices (ASPs). The major handset producers had to respond more aggressively in markets such as China and India to compete with white-box producers, while in mature markets they competed hard with each other for market share.Leer más

HSPA is on adrenaline; network deployments of HSPA+ are rapidly increasing and throughput speeds are hitting new high levels. 3G Americas, a wireless industry trade association representing the GSM family of technologies including LTE, reports that 42 of the 303 HSPA operators worldwide have upgraded their networks to HSPA+. HSPA technology has received widescale support from leading manufacturers; one vendor recently announced plans to showcase live demonstrations of HSPA+ at peak theoretical throughput rates of 84 Mbps at the upcoming 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

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Barcelona, 3 de febrero de 2010 - El mercado de la banda ancha mantuvo en diciembre la tendencia alcista de los últimos meses (agosto-noviembre) y sumó 63.722 nuevas líneas, tras un periodo (febrero-julio) de crecimiento más moderado. De esta forma, a finales de año, España superó los 9,7 millones de líneas de banda ancha, un 7,6% más que a cierre de 2008 y alcanzó una penetración de 21,1 líneas cada 100 habitantes, según los últimos datos de la CMT correspondientes a la nota mensual de diciembre. Por operadores, los alternativos captaron el 64% de las altas netas de líneas de banda ancha durante el último trimestre (octubre-diciembre), los operadores de cable, el 20% y Telefónica, el 17%. El dinamismo de los mercados de la banda ancha y de la telefonía fija también tuvo su reflejo en las portabilidades asociadas a líneas de telefonía fija. Así, durante el mes de diciembre se registró el segundo mejor dato de portabilidades fijas desde que la CMT contabiliza este registro. Concretamente se alcanzaron las 136.322 portabilidadades, número ligeramente inferior con respecto al récord de intercambios que se batió en el mes de noviembre (138.541 líneas).Leer más

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Dec 17, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today reported that total revenues in the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, ended Nov. 27, 2009, were $78.1 million. Gross profit was $5.5 million, and gross margin was 7.0 percent. These results include the effects of subscription accounting applied to Palm webOS products as required by GAAP.(1) In accordance with this methodology, revenues and direct cost of revenues for Palm webOS products (currently Palm Pre and Palm Pixi smartphones) are deferred and recognized over the products' estimated economic lives. To facilitate comparisons to Palm's historical results, Palm has included non-GAAP adjusted measures, which exclude the impact of subscription accounting, stock-based compensation and other items detailed later in this release. The company believes this information will help investors better evaluate its current period performance and trends in its business. Non-GAAP Adjusted Revenues in the second quarter totaled $302.0 million, non-GAAP Adjusted Gross Profit was $77.3 million and non-GAAP Adjusted Gross Margin was 25.6 percent. "We are continuing to execute strongly against our long-term strategy with the delivery of Palm Pixi, the new carrier launches completed this quarter, and the upcoming opening of Palm's full developer program," said Jon Rubinstein, Palm's chairman and chief executive officer.Leer más

16 December 2009 - Despite declining mobile handsets sales in 2009, smartphones continue to represent the fastest growing and most profitable segment of the mobile handset market. Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that volume sales of these devices are to grow by 33.5% year-on-year in 2009 and by 36% in 2010. However, the importance of the smartphone segment is underlined by the fact that, although they will only account for 27% of the total number of handsets sold in 2010, they will represent over half (55%) of the value of the total mobile handset market and almost two thirds (64%) in terms of profitability. "The strong volume growth rate and high smartphone ASPs (average selling prices) make this the most profitable segment in the current mobile phone market. In 2010, we expect profits from smartphones to represent an impressive 64% of total mobile handset market profits. As demand for mid-tier handsets declines, competition in the smartphone segment is set to intensify which is forcing manufacturers to innovate and differentiate their products in terms of hardware, software and content," commented Malik Kamal-Saadi, Principal Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media and co-author of Future Mobile Handsets report. Attracted by the high volume growth and strong profit margins, many new entrants have entered or are entering the market.Leer más

Gothenburg, Sweden – December 14, 2009: According to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, 1.4 percent of the mobile network connections worldwide were used for wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communication at the end of 2009. The shares in the EU and the US were 2.4 percent and 4.3 percent respectively. In the next five years, the total number of wireless M2M connections is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.6 percent to reach 187.1 million connections in 2014. By the same year M2M as a share of the total number of cellular connections is projected to reach 3.1 percent. “The global wireless M2M market has felt the impact of the economic downturn in the past year”, said Tobias Ryberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. “Hardware manufacturers have suffered from shrinking margins as volume growth has flattened out at the same time as prices have continued to fall. Network service providers have fared better and still enjoy high growth for M2M connections even if the rate of increase has slowed down in several markets.” He points out that M2M is now starting to generate substantial revenue streams for large operators despite of the typical monthly ARPU of just a few euros. Berg Insight anticipates that 2010 will be a positive year for the global wireless M2M market with hardware shipments returning to growth and a continued increase in the number of network connections.Leer más