Voda boss could reap £45m for just hanging on

Vodafone boss Arun Sarin could be cashing in £45m, in shares and options, if he can keep Vodafone on an even keel until summer 2009. Even if he jumps ship now he could sell off what he already owns for a tidy £10m.

The figures come from The Sunday Times, which has worked out that the 33 per cent rise in Vodafone shares over the last 12 months values Mr. Sarin's current stock in the company at £10m. Throw in future share and option grants and the figure jumps to that almost round £45m. They also note he should still have some change lying around from the £17m he made selling Air-Touch to Vodafone back in 1999.
Click here to find out more!

Arun has certainly turned Vodafone around, selling off unprofitable ownerships in Switzerland and Belgium while getting involved in developing markets such as India. Investors have responded well to his leadership and driven up the price of the shares, despite the fact that the UK Vodafone billing system is a complete mess and Sarin apparently knows nothing about the mobile phone business.

But despite his novel approach the company has been rolling out new services and getting customers onto data services as well as ensuring it's got fixed-line assets where it's selling mobile, so it can paint itself as a communications company rather than a mobile phone operator.

To get his £45m Sarin is going to have to keep Vodafone profitable for the next 18 months. He had intended to step down this summer, but the promise of such a wedge could well be enough to keep him hanging around for an additional year.
Source:http://www.theregister.co.uk

Samsung F700 flies

Samsung Mobile's F700 handset will trump the success of its G800 if sales continue as they are, said Samsung Uk & Ireland director Mark Mitchinson.

Samsung’s market share has slipped over the past month, but Mitchinson reckons the F700 (pictured) will see it reassert its buoyancy ahead of Christmas.

“On Vodafone, the Samsung F700 is selling extremely well,” he said. “It is on a par with the G800. Hopefully we will pick up some market share.”

Meanwhile Samsung’s Susan Land has taken on marketing for the networks as well as retail and distribution, in a new head of marketing role.

source:http://www.mobilephoneshopuk.net

HTC cancels production of V920 Smartphone for Vodafone

The Taiwan-based High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) has reportedly canceled its contract production of V920 series smartphone for the United Kingdom's telecom company Vodafone, which was originally slated for sale during the Christmas season in Europe.

Besides, Google's newly launched Android platform has shown defective quality, which may constitute negative impact on HTC's sales of G Phone, the world's first model designed for the platform.

Back in this September, Vodafone, one of the world's biggest telecom companies, launched several own-brand mobile phones, including V920 smartphone that is built with a two-megapixel camera and a 2.4-inch screen and uses 3.5-generation Internet access, for sale in the Christmas season. However, Vodafone reportedly decided to drop the V920, and has yet to give any reasons for the cancellation.

On another front, HTC has also been plagued by the underdevelopment of Google's Android platform that will severely affect success of the world's first G Phone, which is scheduled to be launched by HTC in the first half of 2008.

Google unveiled its Android platform, a mobile phone platform, in November, attracting quite a few software companies to develop application software based on the platform. But, the Android platform has many unsolved bugs in programs, whereas Google hasn't provided integral reporting systems for debugging.

Also, Android's design procedures and documents provided by Google are not clear enough, and the human machine interface of the platform is not splendid, making application software based on the platform unattractive in look and feel for users, who are inclined to accept more vision-oriented interface nowadays.

Vodafone's UK JV stagnating

WHILE 3 UK and T-Mobile happily go ahead with joint venture - Mobile Broadband Network – the INQ learnt that the wheels are still turning very slowly for Orange and Vodafone.

The pair still haven't come up with a name for the management company which will run their combined network, even though the 'historic agreement' was announced back in February 2007.
So it's still called the 'JV' for convenience sakes. Maybe they'll come up with something a bit more original than T-Mobile and 3 UK.

One of the excuses appears to be that the JV's submission to the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) is still pending, although our mole says something should happen any day now.

After that it'll be roughly three months before there's an official green light. Although given the existence of Mobile Broadband Network, it's hard to see how the OFT could say 'No'.

The three months should be taken up with the JV making a decision on who to outsource the project to. Apparently the front runners are: - Nokia Siemens Networks; Ericsson Services; Alcatel Lucent; BT and Huawei. Those five will be narrowed down to two before the final selection is made.

The favourite appears to be Ericsson – but then Ericsson is already favourite for Mobile Broadband network, too.
So it's looking like Q2 2008 before anything really starts to happen. It's a bit of a contrast to India where Vodafone, Bharti and Idea have already set up an infrastructure sharing company, Indus Towers. µ
Source:http://www.theinquirer.net

Vodafone launches My Communities upload service

My Communities enables Vodafone customers to upload pictures and videos from mobiles to Facebook, Youtube, Myspace and Bebo.

Vodafone has announced its "My Communities" including Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Bebo will enable customers for the first time to upload pictures and videos to
their favorite community directly from their mobile.

Customers can now upload pictures and video to their Facebook account direct from their
Nokia N95 8GB or Sony Ericsson W910i handsets, a functionality which is at the moment unique to Vodafone customers only.

Anyone who wants to try the new service needs to click on the My Communities icon and you will be prompted to download the application.

They can then choose one of the four communities and using their current login details (which the phone then remembers for future) and can upload content straight from their handset.

Customers must be signed up for internet usage, data charges will be around 22p per pic, depending on size, and will take around 30 seconds to upload on 3G network access.

Vodafone UK Moves to the Top Spot in Off-portal Sales

Looking back over 2007, UK based mobile billing provider, Bango reports strong commercial gains for UK operators that moved to open up the mobile web, with Vodafone UK rising to first place in the value of off-portal content sales. Measured across its total base of content providers, Bango saw traffic grow fastest on networks where steps were taken to encourage more browsing off-portal and payout rates increased to content providers.

Vodafone has benefited from being among the first to offer a clean, consumer friendly WAP billing interface. It also supports the move from a portal model to a more open search based model by placing a search box prominently on the Vodafone live! home page. The payout rates are among the highest of all the UK operators.

"2007 was a good year for all UK networks but by moving decisively to support off-portal content sales, Vodafone leapt to the top of the league in value of transactions. We foresee the UK operators battling to offer even better payout rates, approaching that of credit cards." - Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango

source:http://www.cellular-news.com/story/28168.php

Vodafone has made good calls in emerging markets

If there were any doubt about the credit crunch hitting the high street, the grisly headlines of the past few weeks have firmly dispelled it. In such a turbulent financial environment, established stocks such as BT are traditionally regarded as a safe haven.

But investors with an eye for telecoms might do better to turn towards the mobile sector and its flagship player, Vodafone.

Likes its landline peer the group, which boasts 241 million global subscribers, offers the reassurance of ‘sticky’ customers: While its average revenue spend - currently around £24 a month in the UK - may slow if a finanical downturn does take hold, it would require nothing short of financial Armageddon for most of us to give up our mobile subscriptions.

But while BT struggles to convince many investors that its ambitions for serving global corporates as a multinational IT player can be pulled off – it has yet been unable to report progress towards a 15 per cent profit margin target for its Global Services division – Vodafone has two convincing growth paths opening up to it.

It does however mark a turning point in Vodafone’s future prospects, giving an indication that consumers are finally banishing their reluctance to spend on more lucrative services instead of just calling and texting.

In the current environment the group’s diversified geographic portfolio and critically its exposure to markets outside of the UK and US is also a strong plus point While a foothold in such markets does not come cheap – it splashed out $11.1 billion for a 67 per cent stake in Hutchison Essar, India’s fourth-biggest mobile operator, earlier this year – Vodafone has presented convincing evidence of a significant payback.

In contrast to the 2 per cent revenue growth in Europe at the half year, revenues in Vodafone’s emerging markes regions jumped an impressive 39.9 per cent.

Vodacom, in which Vodafone is desperately seeking to boost its 50 per cent stake, recently reported an envious 15.1 per cent growth in profit – the kind of double-digit growth associated in the UK with the mobile heyday of the late 1990s.

At 183.20p, up 29 per cent in the year, the group trades at 16 times next year’s earnings.

Frequent use of mobile may trigger mouth cancer

London: The use of mobile phones for long periods may trigger mouth cancer, shows a study by researchers in Israel.

Previous studies had generated conflicting results. While some researchers had said they found a link between cancer and excess mobile phone use, a few scientists had rejected the claim.

In the new study, scientists looked at the lifestyles of 402 people with benign mouth tumours and 56 with malignant ones. They were compared to a control group of 1,266 people.

The study found that five years of frequent use increased the chances of developing a tumour in the mouth by around 50 per cent compared with people who had never used one, reported the online edition of the Daily Mail.

Those who used mobiles the most were more likely than normal to develop parotid gland tumours, the scientists said.

The parotid is the largest of the salivary glands located in front of the ear. Long-term mobile phone users tended to develop tumours on the same side of the head as the phone was normally held, they said.

People who used mobile phones in rural areas, where the phone has to work harder to make contact with the nearest base station, were found to be at greater risk although the cause of the heightened risk was not established.

Source:http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14576183

Vodafone to upgrade mobile broadband

Vodafone Australia has announced plans to upgrade its mobile broadband network, claiming the network will provide coverage to 95% of Australians before the end of 2008.

The upgrade will be based on high-speed packet access (HSPA) technology, enabling faster download and upload speed as well as expanded coverage. It will also improve coverage and capacity for 2G and 3G voice calls.

"We're accelerating plans to upgrade our mobile network, which will provide our customers with faster download and upload speeds, better performance and improved services," said Russell Hewitt, Vodafone Australia's CEO.

The company's CTO, Andy Reeves, said, "We'll be going flat out with teams upgrading sites in every state and territory, simultaneously. It's a massive project but we're very confident we can complete Vodafone's national mobile broadband network upgrade within one year."

Vodafone will continue its 3G joint venture with Optus in metropolitan areas. All Vodafone mobile devices already in use will continue to operate on the new network.

The company intends to complete its hardware and software vendor selection process early in 2008 and has already commenced work in preparation for the upgrade.

Source:http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/

Vodafone Xmas ad blitz

The Samsung F700 slider phone is the centrepiece of Vodafone's Christmas advertising campaign, understood to have cost around 10 million pounds.

The campaign will highlight a range of handsets exclusive to Vodafone and will run across television, print, radio, outdoor and online media.

Vodafone UK head of brand marketing and communications Dominic Chambers said: “We focus on music and internet services. Christmas is going to be very competitive. The campaign will drive footfall.”

Source:http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk

Vodafone Sells Porsche's Luxury Mobile Phone; Price Tops IPhone

Vodafone Group Plc, stymied in an effort to let customers use Apple Inc.'s iPhone on its German network, started a partnership with Porsche SE to offer the luxury carmaker's first handset.

The aluminum P9521 phone is on sale exclusively at 120 Vodafone shops in Germany for 999 euros ($1,466) with a service contract, and 1,199 euros without, Vodafone said in an e-mailed statement today.

The Porsche handset features a double-hinge design that allows users to rotate the touch-sensitive screen 180 degrees, Vodafone said. The device also has a 3.2-megapixel camera with auto-focus, flash and digital zoom. A fingerprint scanning device helps protect personal data on the phone.

This month, Newbury, England-based Vodafone lost a bid in court to forbid Deutsche Telekom AG from selling the iPhone exclusively with a two-year service contract with Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit. T-Mobile, chosen by Apple to sell the iPhone in Germany, offers the combination handset and iPod digital music player for 399 euros plus a minimum monthly charge of 49 euros.

Apple, T-Mobile ‘monopolizers’ says Vodaphone

Mobile network provider Vodafone has accused T-Mobile and Apple of creating new monopolies.

“Apple and T-Mobile have decided to change the market in an anticompetitive way”, Heise Online has Vodafone Deutschland CEO Friedrich Joussen saying.

A German court recently overturned an injunction forcing T-Mobile to sell unlocked phones.

Now, “Exclusively marketing the iPhone with T-Mobile sets a precedence which creates new monopolies at the expense of the customer”, says Joussen in an interview with Berliner Zeitung, states the story.

German law and mobile telephony licenses say a mobile phone must work in any network, Joussen told a Hamburg regional court, asking it to decide if iPhone access should be limited to only one operator.

“The iPhone was the first not to comply with this rule by being exclusive to T-Mobile,” he says, also declaring he has, “no intention to allow Apple to dictate how the market was to operate”.

O2 similarly rules the iPhone roost in Britain but in France, where customers aren’t compelled to go to just one supplier, to DRM King Steve Jobs’ disgust, 20% have bought unlocked iPhones.
source:http://www.p2pnet.net

Vodafone gives Hamilton F700 for Xmas

Vodafone has given a Samsung F700 to Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton and each of his pit crew as a Christmas present at an event in London.

The gift is part of Vodafone’s ongoing sponsorship of the McLaren Formula One team, where Hamilton is the main driver. Vodafone presented Hamilton and his crew with the handsets at the Vodafone store in Oxford Street in order to promote the new F700 and the Vodafone Music Store. The F700 features a touch screen, five megapixel camera, HTML browsing and QWERY keyboard. The handset also offers access to the Vodafone Music Store, which boasts an archive of over 1.4 million songs.

Hamilton said: “It’s a great pleasure to work with Vodafone because I get a load of free phones!

"The F700 is very useful as I can now listen to music and contact people all on one device. It's great having access to the Vodafone Music Store as it gives me access to so many tracks, which is important to me as music plays a big part in my life.

“It’s funny that Vodafone has given me a F700 for Christmas as I've just ordered some for a few of my friends and family.”

To watch the presentation or to hear Hamilton’s views on the Samsung F700 and Vodafone Music Store take a look at the video in our related media section

Source:http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk

Vodafone fails to stop German iPhone deal

Vodafone failed yesterday in its attempt to block a German rival from selling Apple’s iPhone exclusively, when a Hamburg court ruled that T-Mobile could market the phone only to its customers.

Vodafone, which had claimed that the tie-up breached German competition laws, could now face a substantial claim for damages from T-Mobile.

The case had threatened to undermine Apple’s iPhone business model. The Californian group had sought to maximise revenues from the gadget – a combined music player, mobile phone and internet browser – by striking exclusive operator deals in each European market. In return for these exclusive deals, each partner mobile network agreed to hand over to Apple a significant chunk of customer revenues.

Competition laws in France have forced Apple to open up the phone to other networks there, in addition to its “exclusive” French partner Orange.

A spokesman for Vodafone said: “The intention of the legal action was to ensure clarity on the commercial postion in the German marketplace. We have not received the written ruling, but we will be examining it closely to decide on any future actions.
source:http://business.timesonline.co.uk

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 15% in 3Q2007

Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users in the third quarter of 2007 reached 289 million units, a 15 percent increase from the same period last year, according to Gartner Inc. The top five vendors increased their market shares and accounted for 81.6 percent of the global market share.

"Even though relatively few models were introduced this quarter, overall sales exceeded expectations. Mobile phone sales were mainly driven by strong performances in Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa," said Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices research at Gartner. "The third quarter also saw Samsung gain the No. 2 position taking advantage of Motorola's continued weak performance."

Nokia's mobile phone sales to end-users totaled 110.2 million units reaching a market share of 38.1 percent in the third quarter of 2007. This quarter, Nokia not only exhibited the highest year-on-year market share increase, but also raised operating margins thanks to effective cost management and global distribution strategy. Nokia was also the main provider of those devices as Motorola shifted focus away from them.

Samsung's sales to end users reached 41.8 million units and saw the vendor gain the No. 2 position as it better managed its channel inventory. Sales of its Ultra Edition II series continued to gain momentum in key markets such as Western Europe, where Samsung reached 21 percent market share, its strongest performance in the region.

Motorola's sales into the channel remained weak and, with limited surplus stock, sales to end-users were not enough to maintain its No. 2 position. Motorola's market share dropped 7.6 percentage points from the third quarter of 2006, relegating the vendor to the No. 3 position.

Sony Ericsson's positive performance continued in the third quarter of 2007 as sales reached 25.4 million units. As Sony Ericsson built up sales volume and presence in some regions, such as Latin America, it also saw a slight increase in inventory among distributors.

LG sold 20.5 million units in the third quarter of 2007 and reached a market share of 7.1 percent. LG faced stronger competition in markets such as India, where the code division multiple access (CDMA) market has become challenging as operators closed deals with new entrants such as ZTE.
Source:http://www.wirelessdesignasia.com