BoNDiNg exPeRIeNCe news in brief Timeline Investing in IndiaOTE sells out of Serbia telekom srbija...

BoNDiNg exPeRIeNCeWeighing up the strengths of telecoms operators’ brands as they seek to connect with their customers

news in brief

3 Timeline A round-up of some of the major stories reported in our daily news service www.totaltele.com

bUsiness AnD finAnCe

6 Investing in India Capital investment in india’s telecom sector continues to grow, but legal and regulatory issues and reports of widespread corruption create an air of uncertainty.

top 50 brAnDs

10 Brand ranking european operators speak out on the importance of a strong brand, but in brand finance’s new ranking table the biggest growth comes from the briCs.

neXt-GenerAtion ACCess

17 Copper counting operators begin to embrace new techniques for extending the life of their copper access networks; there could be a knock-on effect for fttH.

stAtistiCs

19 Prime numbers Global broadband numbers, connected tVs, Lte smartphone subscriptions, and a realistic look at video calling.

leaDer coNteNts

Mary lennighan editor

Total Telecom

BusiNess aNalysis for telecoMs professioNals febRuaRy 2012

Advertising is becoming more interactive as companies seek to bond

with their customers. Coca-Cola, one of the world’s

biggest brands, this month launches a new superbowl campaign featur-ing its animated polar bear mascots. Live from their online home, the bears will watch and pass comment on the game, entertainment and traditional tV ads that accompany the finale of the American football season. the company says it is “capitalising on the growing trend of second screen media consump-tion to extend its connection with fans,” beyond the tV to the pC and social media universe.

but building a strong brand is intrinsically linked to the quality or usefulness of the product behind it; Coca-Cola would not sell 1.7 billion servings per day purely on the back of a recognisable logo and some quirky polar bears.

As Vodafone’s group brand direc-tor Clare sheikh points out in our article on p.10, “a strong global brand is not about advertising, visi-bility or price,” but rather about making sure the product behind

Bonding is not just about building a rapport with the consumer

the brand solves a particular consumer need.

she should know. Vodafone claims the top spot in brand finance’s latest global telecoms brand ranking, produced for Total Telecom; this year we rank the top 50 telecoms operator brands world-wide, as well as separately ordering the industry’s biggest hardware and handset makers.

orange, which is now the fourth most valuable telecoms operator brand in the world, knows better than most how a brand can develop. this month the company is shed-ding the france telecom brand for domestic fixed-line services in favour of orange, and is mulling doing the same at group level.

the orange brand is well known on the global stage, including in india, where the company is one of a number of telcos offering services to a growing enterprise market. we look at that market, and india’s investment climate, on p.6.

bonding is not just about build-ing a rapport with the consumer. fixed-line operators are embracing techniques that will help them get more out of their copper access networks, including pair bonding, vectoring and phantom mode (p.17). bonding is already taking place in some markets as telcos seek to extend the reach of high-speed broadband services... which is also one way to bond with customers in out-of-the-way places. n

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tiMeliNe

Zambia privatisation reversedthe Zambian government reversed the 2010 sale of Zamtel to Libya’s LAp Green networks after an investigation concluded that the telco had been grossly undervalued. LAp Green paid $257 million for a 75% stake.

OTE sells out of Serbiatelekom srbija bought back 20% of its own shares from Greek incumbent ote for €380 million.

Mindspeed buys PicochipUs-based semiconductor company Mindspeed agreed to acquire UK small cells chip maker picochip for approximately $51.8 million: $27.5 million in cash and $24.3 million in stock. the deal also includes a $25 million earnout provision, payable in Q1 2013.

Nokia shifts Asia-Pac HQnokia is moving its Asia-pacific headquarters to beijing from

Business

Swiss Orange acquired Apax partners agreed to pay €1.6 billion for orange switzerland and is examining the possibility of merging the operator with rival player sunrise. A similar move to combine the two businesses was blocked by regulators in 2010.

Ericsson eyes NSNericsson would be interested in acquiring certain assets from rival nokia siemens networks if they were put up for sale, the swedish vendor’s Cfo Jan frykhammar told Total Telecom.

UK LTE rulesofcom has proposed reserving spectrum in the UK’s upcoming Lte auction for either 3UK or a new entrant to ensure that there are four viable mobile networks in the country. However, it denied everything everywhere’s request to have sub-1 GHz spectrum reserved for it.

Chile merger offAfter being blocked by a Chilean antitrust court, the planned merger between entel and GtD Manquehue was called off when GtD’s controlling shareholder backed out of the deal.

Huawei drops India plant planChina’s Huawei has abandoned its plan to set up a manufacturing plant in india due to weak demand for telecoms equipment there. it has instead contracted a unit of flextronics international to manufacture equipment for the local market.

singapore in a bid to meet its cost-savings targets.

Reding tackles data protectionthe eU’s justice commissioner Viviane reding proposed new data protection rules that she claims will help build trust in online services.

Netflix UK launchVideo streaming website netflix made its UK debut with a £5.99 per month unlimited tariff.

Google buys more patentsGoogle acquired 187 patents and 36 patent applications, mainly relating to mobile devices, from ibM at the end of December.

Brazil may ban Chinese kitthe brazilian government is considering a ban on cheap mobile phones imported from China. brazilian manufacturers have complained that Chinese handsets are entering the

a roundup of the major stories in telecoms in the past month, as reported in our daily news service www.totaltele.com

US operating system share - consumers

The launch of the iPhone 4S in autumn 2011 had a big impact on the shape of the uS smartphone market, according to Nielsen. 45% of ‘recent acquirers’ (those who acquired a smartphone in the last three months of the year) surveyed in December said they chose an iPhone, compared with 25% in October; 57% of those who bought an apple device in December chose the iPhone 4S. 46% of uS mobile consumers had smartphones in Q4 2011, while 60% of those who bought a new device in that quarter selected a smartphone over a feature phone.

Source: Nielsen Mobile InsightsAll smartphone users

n Android n iOS n RIM BlackBerry n Windows Mobile n Palm / WebOS n Symbian n Windows Phone 7

february 2012 www.totaltele.com

country at prices well below local manufacturing costs.

Intel buys software, patentsintel agreed to pay $120 million for video software, 190 patents and 170 patent applications from realnetworks.

HT cuts jobsCroatian incumbent Hrvatski telekom announced plans to cut 450 jobs as a result of weak market conditions. Amongst other things, the company blamed lower sales, regulatory changes and stiff competition.

BSNL to raise $3bnexecutives at india’s bsnL said the telco is planning to raise up to inr150 billion (about $3 billion) via bank loans, mainly to clear arrears to vendors who have not been paid for the past six months.

Slim gets Net ServicosCarlos slim’s embratel has been given the green light by brazilian regulator Anatel to take over cableco net servicos.

Apple reinvents textbookApple unveiled a range of new products designed to drive the use of electronic textbooks in the classroom. these included ibooks 2, ibooks Author and itunes U.

Patents shuffleericsson reorganised its Licensing and patent Development division in a bid to generate more revenues from its intellectual property. the vendor holds 27,000 patents that in 2010 generated seK4.6 billion (£433.4 million) in revenues.

46.3%

30%

xx%4.5%

1.4%1.4%1.3%

0.5%2.4%

0.8%1.4%

51.7%

37%

6%

Recent acquirers (past 3 months)

Websites blackoutA number of high-profile internet sites, including wikipedia, staged a blackout in January to protest against planned Us anti-piracy legislation sopA and pipA.

neTWORKs

China Telecom UK MVNO neareverything everywhere will host China telecom (europe) on its UK mobile network. the Chinese company plans to launch its mobile service sometime during the first quarter.

DoCoMo plans spending spreefollowing a major network outage, Japan’s ntt DoCoMo said it will spend an additional ¥50 billion (€500 million) over the next three years to strengthen its mobile infrastructure.

French FTTH dealfrance telecom-orange inked a deal with bouygues telecom that will enable the latter to use the horizontal network segment of its fibre-to-the-home (fttH) infrastructure in very densely populated areas and to share the terminal segment elsewhere.

Hungry handsetsiphone 4s users download 2.76 times as much data as iphone 3G users, and upload 3.2 times as much, according to a new study from Arieso. new Android devices are also placing a much greater strain on data networks than earlier models.

Alcatel-Lucent Saudi LTE dealsaudi telecom company (stC) contracted Alcatel-Lucent to deploy and manage its Lte network in the northern region of saudi Arabia. stC claims it will become the first in the country to launch a commercial Lte service, following a trial in september.

France gets Freefree Mobile launched as france’s fourth mobile operator, offering a €19.99 per month unlimited calls, messaging and internet tariff. orange immediately responded with price cuts.

Hungarian LTE launchMagyar telekom launched Hungary’s first Lte network when it started offering services in budapest.

LTE phone hometelecoms operators and vendors unveiled a raft of Lte-enabled smartphones, dongles and portable wifi hotspots at the Consumer electronics show (Ces) in Las Vegas. At&t, Verizon wireless and sprint nextel showed off devices from the likes of nokia, sony, LG, samsung, HtC, and Motorola.

Viettel investing abroadVietnam’s Viettel Group plans to invest $400 million over 10 years in projects to build mobile networks in Mozambique and peru, according to local media reports. it is also seeking to take part in a $273.3 million telecoms network project in Mali.

Tahiti tabletorange UK has launched its first own-branded tablet, the Huawei-made, Android-powered tahiti. the device is available with a data plan in its own right or bundled with orange’s low-cost Android smartphone, the san francisco 2.

China’s half billionChina’s online population hit 513 million in 2011, up 12.2% on the previous year, according to the China internet network information Center (CnniC).

Nigeria TD-LTE rolloutHuawei will deploy a mobile network based on the tDD

tiMeliNe

great scottYahoo fi nally appointed a new CeO some four months after it parted company with Carol bartz. Scott Thompson, president of ebay’s PayPal business, joined the troubled Internet company in January. Reactions to Thompson’s appointment were mixed. The news that yahoo now has a permanent CeO in place was greeted positively, but many expressed concerns over the newcomer’s lack of expertise in display advertising. Indeed, speaking on a conference call with analysts, Thompson sidestepped questions on display advertising and the content business, noting that it was “too early...to have any informed opinion” on that side of the business. according to Thompson, yahoo needs to focus on “providing the great experience that fully engages our users. everything else fl ows from that.” As CEO it will fall to Thompson to see yahoo through its ongoing strategic review process. “The board is considering a wide range of opportunities for the company’s businesses, which may include specifi c invest-ments or dispositions [sic] of assets,” yahoo chairman Roy Bostock said as he an-nounced the new CEO’s ap-pointment. yahoo will update on progress at a later date, he added. bostock also paid tribute to yahoo’s interim CeO Tim Morse, who returns to his post as CfO. Thompson will receive a $1 million salary, plus $1.5 million cash bonus and $22.5 million in potential stock awards. almost as soon as Thompson took the reins, Yahoo announced that co-founder Jerry yang is leaving the company, a move many believe will facilitate a sale or break-up of the company.

variant of Lte for nigeria’s Zodafones.

Voda tops M2M rankingVodafone is the mobile operator best placed to take advantage of the machine-to-machine opportunity, according to Machina research, which ranked it top in a new operator survey.

Virgin broadband upgradeVirgin Media will spend £110 million to double the speed of broadband connections for 4 million customers. the upgrade will take place over 18 months.

PeOPLe

New RIM CEOthorsten Heins was named as new chief executive of riM, replacing under-fire co-Ceos and chairmen Mike Lazaridis and Jim balsillie. Lazaridis becomes vice chairman of riM’s board, while balsillie remains a director.

KPN CFO quitsCarla smits-nusteling, chief financial officer at Kpn, will leave her post on 1 April. she resigned following a dispute over the Dutch telco’s new organisational structure, which came into effect on 1 January.

CEO change at Telecom Egypttelecom egypt appointed company insider tarek Aboualam as its new chief executive, replacing acting Ceo and managing director Mohammed Abdel rehim Hassanein.

New CFO for LightSquaredLightsquared named insider Marc Montagner as its new chief financial officer, replacing Michael Montemarano. Meanwhile, sprint nextel has given Lightsquared until 30 January to get fCC clearance to operate its network.

4 www.totaltele.com february 2012

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BusiNess & fiNaNce

I N V E S T I N G I N I N D I A

cliMate CHaNGeCapital investment in India’s telecoms sector continues to grow, but corruption, eco-nomic turmoil and regulatory hurdles have created an air of uncertainty. By Nick Wood

india is one of the darlings of the developing world and its fast-grow-ing mobile market the jewel in its

crown, exemplified by the establishment in recent years of several global telecoms players’ high-rise local headquarters in Gurgaon, near Delhi. However, mobile price wars, a high-profile spectrum scandal, and regulatory and economic uncertainty have removed some of the sheen from those office buildings, and cast doubt over whether india’s telecoms sector remains a worthwhile investment.

the volume of capital invested in india’s telecom sector reached $67 billion in fiscal 2010-11, up 17.7% from $56.9 billion in fiscal 2009-10, according to the telecom regulatory Authority of india (trAi). Mobile subscriber growth drove an 8.69% increase in total telecom service revenues to $34.3 billion from $31.5 billion.

beyond pure customer growth the picture of india’s retail mobile market is less rosy. GsM operators saw average minutes of usage fall to 349 per subscriber per month as of March 2011, down from 410 a year earlier, while ArpU slipped to 100 rupees ($1.99) from 131 rupees ($2.61); for CDMA operators MoU fell to 263 from 307, and ArpU to 66 rupees ($1.31) from 76 rupees ($1.52).

with wireless teledensity reaching 73.4% in november, eight of the coun-try’s 15 mobile operators still holding less than a 5% share of the market, and no firm plans for major upcoming spectrum auctions that would drive geographic or service expansion, the indian telecoms party might appear be over. However, the outlook from the enterprise side is signif-icantly more optimistic.

“there is a great hunger [from indian businesses]...the whole phenomenon around cloud computing and social networking has really got the interest of Cios,” says bala Mahadevan, india chief executive at orange business services (obs). “two years ago they were satisfied with what they had; that is not the case now.” services such as unified communi-cations, network security, migrating to ip-based communication and improving connectivity to new markets are all seeing healthy demand, he says.

obs has invested heavily in india. it has 12 pops and 10 offices, including one of its four Major service Centres (MsC), which employs 1,500 of its 2,300 local staff, providing order processing and support services for its global customers, and a network operations centre (noC).

while call centres, it, and it business process outsourcing (bpo) will continue

to be lucrative sectors for enterprise telcos in india, Mahadevan says obs is also tapping into a number of fast-grow-ing industry verticals. “the government is going to be a big spender,” he predicts, as local, state and central authorities follow through on plans to provide more services electronically.

“retail is booming...india is a consump-tion-led economy. there is huge hunger for goods; whether it is white goods or luxury goods, retail will be a very big sector,” Mahadevan says. the country’s pharmaceutical industry is also an attrac-tive prospect, as are its manufacturing and hospitality sectors. “india is not just a base for manufacturing pharmaceuticals, it is also increasingly being recognised as a research base,” he says. As such, obs can target multinationals expanding into india and domestic pharma players eyeing opportunities abroad.

bt Global services is another enter-prise player taking special interest in india, investing in a regional ‘excellence centre’ in pune, and a security operations centre (soC) in noida. the UK incum-bent has 600 staff in the country spread across offices in Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, bangalore, Chennai and pune.

“india continues to provide bt with remarkable business opportunity and by virtue of its sheer size and growth contin-ues to be the preferred destination for many of bt’s global customers and indian and Asian multinationals,” says bt Global services’ singapore-based spokesman Carson Dalton. the Asia-pacific region as a whole represents a $12.5 billion revenue opportunity for the company.

“Unified communications services such as audio and video conferencing and telepresence presents a huge opportunity for bt in india,” he says, citing forecasts from research firm iDC which puts the size of india’s enterprise conferencing market at $154.28 million by 2015.

but investors in india should be aware of its economic challenges.

India teledensity (Nov 2011)

Source: TRaI

Overall urban Rural

tele

dens

ity (%

)

180

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

Mobile market shares (30 Nov 2011)

Loop 0.36%stel 0.40%

HFCL 0.13%etisalat 0.18%

Bharti 19.75%

reliance 16.96%

Vodafone 16.60%

idea 11.76%

BsNl 10.86%

tata 9.43%

aircel 6.89%

sistema 1.64%

MTnL 0.64%

uninor 3.87%

Videocon 0.62%

Source: TRaIPvt: 88.51% PSU: 11.49%

february 2012 www.totaltele.com 7

BusiNess & fiNaNce

the world bank’s world development indicators show india’s GDp grew stead-ily by 8.8%-9.8% per year for the five years to 2010, with the exception of 2008 when it fell to 4.93% during the last down-turn. However, the effects of the macro economic turmoil in europe in 2011 have compounded india’s own economic prob-lems, and in December ratings firm Crisil cut its forecast for india’s GDp growth in fiscal 2011-12 to 7% from 7.6%.

“the immediate outlook for india is weak,” warns Justin wood, the economist intelligence Unit’s corporate network director in singapore. “the economy is slowing, inflation is uncomfortably high, persistently driven by high food prices.”

He is also concerned by india’s large current account deficit (CAD). the reserve bank of india put CAD at $16.9 billion during the July-september 2011 quarter. the figure was flat on-year, helped by growth in net foreign direct investment to $4.4 billion from $3.6 billion a year earlier.

the government has also been strug-gling to rein in the country’s fiscal deficit, which has widened in recent years due to heavy borrowing to fund a stimulus package aimed at mitigating the impact of the 2008 downturn. “it was the right policy at the time,” said prime Minister Manmohan singh, in his new Year address. “but like other countries that resorted to this strategy, we have run out of fiscal space and must once again begin the process of fiscal consolidation.”

singh aims to steer india back to finan-cial stability with the introduction of a new goods and services tax, and a phased reduction in certain subsidies. “this is important to ensure that our growth process is not jeopardised,” he said.

india is also reeling from allegations that the allocation of 2G spectrum in

2008 was rigged, costing the government an estimated $7 billion in lost revenue. executives from a number of telcos including Loop Mobile, reliance telecom, and swan telecom (now etisalat) have been investigated and charged. former telecoms minister A. raja is still behind bars for his alleged involvement in a scandal that is embarrassing for the government and hangs like a dark cloud over india’s entire corporate sector.

“Corruption makes people wary and it makes foreign companies wary until the dust settles,” warns obs’ Mahadevan. in the short term, “enterprises will worry about the investment climate.”

However, there is an upside to corrup-tion being brought to light. “[it] is good news because the government has been forced to take action,” says wood.

indeed, Mahadevan says growing anti-corruption sentiment has led to the creation of more regulatory bodies, some of which have certain judiciary powers. “there is a lot more transparency...scams are coming to light a lot faster,” he says.

there are also regulatory uncertainties for would-be investors to consider. the government is still preparing its new tele-coms policy, which is expected to relax rules on mergers and acquisitions and therefore ease some of the competitive pressure in the retail mobile market. However, the proposals, which were expected to be finalised by the end of 2011, have been delayed and the new policy is not expected to be approved until June. with some mobile players clearly struggling to compete, selling out altogether might be the most effective means of realising value.

Meanwhile, the telecom Disputes settlement and Appellate tribunal (tDsAt) is still considering whether a deal struck in July 2011 between bharti

Airtel, idea, and Vodafone to provide 3G roaming services on one another’s networks in a bid to provide nationwide coverage violated licence rules.

there was a piece of good news for potential investors late last month when the supreme Court ruled that Vodafone’s 2007 purchase of Hutchison essar is not subject to local capital gains tax since neither company is registered in india. Vodafone had been facing a $2.2 billion tax bill on the acquisition.

“this positive ruling for Vodafone improves the perception of india as a fair market for foreign investors,” says ratings firm Moody’s. “An unfavourable ruling would have made it more difficult for foreign companies to invest in india.”

However, there is a potential sting in the tail that could still affect foreign investment in indian companies. the new Direct tax Code, expected to come into force in April, proposes that transac-tions that take place outside the country but involve a company with assets in india are liable to tax in india.

Yet despite the potential stumbling blocks, many still see india very much as a leading developing economy.

“india’s contribution to the world economy is growing,” says wood.

“Almost every [emerging] country you can think of is aspiring to the indian bpo model,” claims som Mittal, president of nAssCoM, the industry body represent-ing india’s it-bpo sector. “Clearly China has aspirations too, but we have more experience.”

Mahadevan meanwhile believes that the sheer size of india’s population gives it a distinct advantage over most other fast-growing economies. “the value proposition of a very large, skilled and educated workforce is still very relevant,” he says. n

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NEC Customer: San Juan Education Department, ArgentinaThe challenge: The San Juan Education Department had 20,000 employees at 800 educational establishments and was growing rapidly. They faced the problem of a severe lack of connectivity. Some outlying areas even lacked a basic phone service. Without an effective communication solution, the department started to become really slow in answering demands placed upon them. Information management within the organisation was ineffi cient and impeded administrator’s ability to make informed decisions.The NEC solution: NEC delivered a secure cloud solution utilizing its desktop virtualization solution (Virtual PC Centre: VPCC) and IP telephony (UNIVERGE) - all based securely in the data centre. This solution allowed the Ministry of Education to double the number of end users without making any signifi cant increase in support staff. The San Juan cloud solution now covers 100% of the territory. Data is encrypted securely across the system, and previously problematic areas, like updating anti-virus software, are now straightforward with just one data centre update. This secure cloud solution, customized for the Ministry of Education, delivers the security and cost-savings of DaaS (Desktop as a Service), SaaS (Software as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) methodologies through the data centre.

The customer reaction: “From my point of view, NEC does things differently to the rest of their competitors - the people that I worked with really understood our operation - the difference is in their human resources. NEC’s staff was committed to a smooth collaboration with our IT personnel. From the beginning, we wanted a close working relationship with NEC. It was so close at times that it was diffi cult to distinguish between internal resources and NEC!”- Gustavo Quiroga, Project Manager, Ministry of Education in San Juan

NEC Customer: Telefonica, SpainThe challenge: Telefonica are a giant telecoms provider, with headquarters in Madrid. Like nearly all telecom providers, Telefonica has recently been facing growing pressures on its revenue and profi ts. A large portion of Telefonica’s revenue comes from their small and medium enterprise customers, and these customers were increasingly requesting new services to strengthen their business capabilities. They also needed the services to be available quickly. That is where NEC stepped in.The NEC Solution: Telefonica chose NEC’s SaaS platform as a new business model to boost revenue without signifi cant investment. Only NEC could offer an integrated IT and network solution, and only NEC could deliver its SaaS solution quickly enough. NEC set up the service infrastructure in only 45 days, defying all expectations. Two key technologies enabling NEC to successfully meet Telefonicas needs were “Aggregation Skills” and “Multi-Tenancy.” The aggregation skill includes not only technology but also business processors to aggregate and bring applications to the platform. These make it possibly to deploy new applications very quickly. The multi-tenancy SaaS platform allows multiple end users to subscribe to and use a variety of application services on the same infrastructure. The end users can access all the applications they wish by using just one window. Telefonica now has a vast array of opportunities to meet their SME customer’s demands.The customer reaction: “I was honestly amazed. I never thought the service infrastructure could be set up in only 45 days. Since our service was launched, we’ve gained

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NEC Customer: citizenM Hotel Group, GlasgowThe challenge: citizenM needed a fully hosted, virtualized communications infrastructure for their new hotel in Glasgow. As a rapidly growing company, they faced the challenge of fi nding a fl exible and adaptable long-term solution that could be deployed in their other hotels quickly and easily. They needed a solution that enabled them to provide complete guest satisfaction. With a major expansion program planned, the solution had to be a long term one, enabling citizenM to expand and execute their growth strategy, regardless of location or timing. Swisscom, a hospitality industry telecommunications provider, selected NEC as their partner to provide the solution.

The NEC Solution: Swisscom selected NEC largely based on the strength of the NEC Sphericall platform. Sphericall is an IP based software switch that lives in a Cloud environment. NEC hosted the Sphericall-based platform within its local data centre, with full redundancy including daily management service, and is providing it as a CaaS (Communications as a Service) solution. In addition, they also connect to SIP Trunking Service Provider and undertook all the call rating as part of the solution, eliminating the need for citizenM to engage with third parties and ensuring that all calls follow the optimum and most cost effective route. To ensure the constant availability of the communication system, NEC has provided local ISDN gateway as an emergency backup in case there is a network failure. This service orientated communications platform delivers scalability, low-cost of ownership and openness. As citizenM continues to expand, it can use the same technology at new hotel sites without incurring further costs.The customer reaction: “With Swisscom and NEC, we knew we had two well known and proven brands offering a reliable and cost-effective solution. One initial upfront investment has accounted for 90% of the work needed for further deployment elsewhere.”- Michael Levie, CCO of citizenM Hotel Group

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NECCP0048 Cloud Solutions DPS_Total Tele.indd 1-2 26/01/2012 12:10


top 50 BraNDs

NaMe DROPPINGB R A N D R A N K I N G 2 0 1 2

european telcos speak out on the importance of brand strength, but the biggest risers in the latest brand finance ranking come from the bRICs. By Mary lennighan

“the orange brand is one of our major tools,” and is at the centre of france telecom’s strategy, says séverine Legrix de la salle, Vp of brand, image and part-nership at orange.

Companies that have a single-brand strategy tend to be the biggest players in their given sector ergo they tend to score highly in surveys like brand finance’s.

but, “any direct benefit of a single brand on customer acquisition and reten-tion is not always clear cut,” says Xander bird, valuation director at brand finance, noting that the impact of moving to a unified branding strategy is influenced by a number of factors, including local attitudes to foreign brands, existing awareness of the international brand, and its value proposition.

“even the most ‘global’ of telecom brands will require regional or national teams to interpret the global positioning and determine an appropriate position-ing in a particular market,” he says.

orange finds it easier to attract custom-ers outside its home market using the orange brand than with a local name. “each time we replace the local brand with the orange brand it is a success,” insists Legrix de la salle, speaking in particular about orange’s operations in Africa. However, she also points out the importance of adapting the international brand to the local environment. “for some countries, orange is very local,” she says.

‘familiarity breeds contempt’, an expression that is still in common parlance, some two

and a half thousand years after it was first used by Aesop in one of his fables. but while there are everyday situations in which many of us doubtless believe it to be true–spending time with the in-laws, for example–many of life’s experiences show the opposite.

in recent years telecoms operators have demonstrated that they are keen to provide a familiar experience to their customers, and many have undertaken projects to unite their global operations under a common brand.

Last month, Vodafone celebrated the 10th anniversary of its partner Markets programme, which gives it presence in countries in which it does not hold an equity stake in a local telecoms operator. in its own words, “Vodafone and its partner operators cooperate in the marketing of global products and serv-ices with varying levels of brand association”. recent additions to the programme see france’s sfr–no longer part-owned by Vodafone–offering enter-prise products under the Vodafone brand, while new operator pacific Mobile telecom in french polynesia is adopting the Vodafone brand across its business.

Given its efforts to build a global brand, it comes as no surprise that Vodafone is ranked first in brand finance’s top 50 telecoms network operator brands 2012 table, compiled for Total Telecom. Vodafone leads the industry with a brand value of over Us$30 billion, retaining the top spot for the fourth consecutive year; it is also the only operator in the table with a AAA+ brand rating.

“brand building is at the core of our business strategy and it’s a key perform-ance indicator for us,” says Clare sheikh, Vodafone’s group brand director. “As the telecoms industry matures, those brands that have not built a distinctive and differentiating personality for themselves face the risk of being commoditised,” she warns.

“A strong global brand is not about advertising, visibility or price, although all these things have a part to play,” sheikh says. “it’s about ensuring that everything we say, do and offer solves a problem or creates an opportunity for our customers.”

Meanwhile, the only operator at the top end of the table to have improved its standing compared with last year was france telecom’s orange, which, like Vodafone, has a strong strategy for devel-oping a cohesive global brand.

A strong global brand is not about advertising, visibility or price...

raNK 2012 raNK 2011 cHaNge

RISERS

Rostelecom 30 163 +133

Centurylink 25 48 +23

Claro 20 37 +17

Virgin Media 27 42 +15

KT 36 50 +14

KPN 45 58 +13

Chunghwa 48 59 +11

airtel 23 33 +10

Source: brand finance

raNK 2012 raNK 2011 cHaNge

FALLERS

Oi 44 21 -23

Swisscom 38 27 -11

Vivo 31 26 -5

nTT 12 9 -3

SFR 33 30 -3

O2 17 15 -2

T (Deutsche Telekom in Germany) 19 17 -2

MTn 24 22 -2



top 50 BraNDs

top 50 global telecoms brands 2012 rank Brand Brand Value Brand rating enterprise Brand Value / rank Brand Value 2012 2012 (us$m) 2012 Value enterprise Value (%) 2011 2011 (us$m)

n 1 Vodafone 30,044 aaa+ 189,232 16% 1 30,674

n 2 at&t 28,379 aa+ 235,495 12% 2 28,884

n 3 Verizon 27,616 aa 203,306 14% 3 27,293

▲ 4 orange 18,557 aa+ 96,884 19% 5 18,622

▼ 5 china Mobile 17,919 aa 148,323 12% 4 19,317

n 6 Movistar 14,412 AAA- 144,483 10% 6 14,935

7 comcast 12,473 aa+ 73,935 17% 11,876

n 8 t-Mobile 12,046 aa+ 83,518 14% 8 11,553

▲ 9 Ntt DocoMo 10,869 AAA- 73,516 15% 10 9,801

▲ 10 Bt 9,820 aa 37,172 26% 12 9,061

11 time Warner cable 9,140 aa 43,448 21% 8,571

▼ 12 Ntt 9,109 AA- 46,041 20% 9 10,338

▲ 13 china unicom 7,944 a+ 56,563 14% 16 6,315

▲ 14 tiM 7,859 aa+ 62,985 12% 13 8,315

▼ 15 china telecom 7,357 AA- 53,550 14% 14 7,261

▲ 16 softbank 6,841 a+ 56,783 12% 18 5,587

▼ 17 o2 6,773 AAA- 47,014 14% 15 6,558

18 sky 6,414 aa+ 20,484 31% 5,782

▼ 19 t (Deutsche telekom in germany) 5,867 aa+ 33,381 18% 17 6,085

▲ 20 claro 5,721 AA- 59,202 10% 37 3,447

▲ 21 telstra 5,283 aa 47,088 11% 23 4,741

▲ 22 Bell canada 5,258 aa+ 40,237 13% 30 3,702

▲ 23 airtel (Bharti) 5,221 aa 43,398 12% 33 3,686

▼ 24 MtN 5,200 AAA- 37,862 14% 22 4,920

▲ 25 centurylink 5,181 aa 39,948 13% 48 2,464

▼ 26 au (KDDi) 5,072 AA- 35,643 14% 25 4,479

▲ 27 Virgin Media 4,764 aaa 16,875 28% 42 2,901

n 28 Beeline (???) 4,707 aa 32,586 14% 28 4,189

n 29 telenor 4,533 AAA- 24,153 19% 29 3,918

▲ 30 rostelecom 4,510 a+ 19,801 23% 163 349

▼ 31 Vivo 4,316 AA- 31,286 14% 26 4,286

▼ 32 rogers 4,087 aa+ 29,216 14% 33 3,643

▼ 33 sfr 4,067 aa 22,524 18% 30 4,101

▲ 34 telcel / telmex 3,756 a+ 45,150 8% 40 2,930

▼ 35 sprint 3,680 aa 22,677 16% 34 3,535

▲ 36 Kt 3,624 aa 14,952 24% 50 2,407

▼ 37 Mts 3,491 aa 18,716 19% 36 3,458

▼ 38 swisscom 3,465 AA- 23,439 15% 27 4,255

39 shaw 3,191 AA- 14,705 22% 2,181

▼ 40 etisalat 3,028 AA- 19,013 16% 39 3,002

▲ 41 telus 3,019 aa 24,076 13% 49 2,451

▲ 42 stc 2,847 AA- 27,782 10% 47 2,468

▲ 43 sK telecom 2,834 aa+ 12,989 22% 44 2,651

▼ 44 oi 2,782 AA- 18,691 15% 21 5,046

▲ 45 KpN 2,653 aa 26,158 10% 58 2,011

▲ 46 telia (sweden) 2,648 aa+ 15,101 18% 51 2,351

▼ 47 optus 2,528 aa 27,524 9% 46 2,530

▲ 48 chunghwa 2,418 aa+ 22,511 11% 59 1,983

49 Ntt communications 2,382 AA- 14,618 16%

▲ 50 Megafon 2,270 AA- 57 2,033

Key: ▲ moved up since 2011 ▼ went down n no change Source: brand finance

Organised by: Founding Partner: Sponsored by:

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ENTRY DEADLINE 16 March 2012

For a full list of the categories visit: www.asiacommsawrds.com

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asia • communication • awards


top 50 BraNDs

france telecom’s decision to adopt the orange monicker in its domestic market shows how far the brand has developed since it launched in the UK in 1994 as a youth-focused consumer mobile product. “in [february] 2012 the [french] fixed-line business will become orange also,” says Legrix de la salle, although she insists the transition will be “a non-event”, since the orange brand is already widely used and known.

furthermore, there have been reports that the group will abandon the france telecom name at a corporate level as well. “the decision has not been taken to change the name of the group...[but] it’s possible,” Legrix de la salle says.

Building Bricsthe biggest changes in terms of brand value and position in the ranking table came form some of the worlds fastest-growing telecoms markets.

China Mobile shed $1.4 billion from its brand value in the past 12 months, pushing it down to fifth place. Meanwhile, rival China Unicom saw its brand value grow by 25%, although it remained at less than half that of China Mobile.

“China Unicom’s jump in brand value relates to its dominance in the fast-grow-ing Chinese smartphone market,” says bird, noting that Unicom offers the sought-after iphone and a number of low-cost own-brand smartphones. “China Mobile will have to react and improve its brand positioning and product offering in order to stop losing share,” he says.

Although it added $1.6 billion to its brand value, China Unicom rose just three places up the main table. And the country’s third operator, China telecom, slipped by one place, despite slightly growing its brand value to $7.36 billion.

the big winner in ranking terms was russia’s rostelecom, which tops the ‘risers’ table having leapt into the top 30 from 163rd place in 2011. “in november 2011 rostelecom switched to a portfolio of products and tariffs, with the aim of leveraging a creative platform to promote a single brand,” says bird. “this has led its brand value to shoot up the table, increasing by a factor of 13.”

rostelecom’s plan will see it initially co-brand with its regional mobile subsid-iaries. then, from the second half of 2012,

rank Brand Brand Value Brand rating enterprise Brand Value / rank Brand Value 2012 (us$m) 2012 Value enterprise Value (%) 2011 2011 (us$m)

TOP 10 HANDSET MAKERS

▲ 1 apple 27,412 aaa+ 135,211 20% 2 6,929

▲ 2 samsung 10,754 AAA- 31,748 34% 4 5,022

▼ 3 Nokia 5,128 aa 14,288 36% 1 9,658

▲ 4 Htc 4,106 aa 17,136 24% 6 2,937

n 5 BlackBerry 3,009 AA- 7,706 39% 5 3,589

6 lg 2,474 a+ 7,035 35% n/a

7 Huawei 2,035 a+ n/a n/a n/a

n 8 sony ericsson * 1,814 AA- 5,895 31% 7 1,479

▼ 9 Motorola 1,328 AA- 5,648 24% 3 5,585

▼ 10 Zte* 1,219 a+ 2,719 45% 8 520

*The 2011 brand Value and enterprise Value have been restated Source: brand finance

Any direct benefi t of a single brand on customer acquisition and retention is not always clear cut

rank Brand Brand Value Brand rating enterprise Brand Value / Brand Value 2012 (us$m) 2012 Value enterprise Value (%) 2011 (us$m)

TOP 5 HARDWARE VENDORS

1 cisco 12,865 AAA- 59,435 22% 11,667

2 ericsson 6,735 AA- 27,432 25% 5,504

3 alcatel-lucent 3,349 AA- 8,654 39% 3,461

4 Qualcomm 2,801 aa 79,941 4% 2,632

5 Nokia siemens Networks 2,223 AA- 6,209 36% 3,664


it will phase out the regional brands in favour of the rostelecom brand alone.

America Movil’s Claro comes in third in the ‘risers’ table, having added 20 places and $2.3 billion to its brand value in the past year. the company is domiciled in Mexico but its plans for brazil have caught the eye of the analysts; it announced in December that it will spend brL3.5 billion (almost Us$2 billion) on infrastructure in brazil in 2012, with a key focus on expand-ing its HspA+ coverage to all subscribers.

“these initiatives directly impact the brand, positioning Claro as an innovative and dynamic provider,” bird says. “improvement to network coverage, call quality and service features also have a positive impact on customer experience and brand perception.”

the fact that such recent announce-ments from Claro and rostelecom impacted so heavily on their score high-lights the forward-looking nature of the brand finance rankings. “there is a strong focus on what is going to happen in the future...[however], we are using data available today, and our judgements

are informed by what has happened in the past,” bird explains. for more infor-mation on how the ranking tables were compiled, see the company’s methodol-ogy on p.14.

Also among the risers is india’s airtel, the only operator from the subcontinent to make an appearance in the top 50. Airtel, owned by bharti, rose by 10 places and added over $1.5 billion to its brand ranking in a year that saw it expand its global presence and remain the leader in the domestic mobile market. bharti intro-duced the airtel brand to Africa in november 2010 and a year later revealed that its customer base in the continent had passed the 50 million mark. its indian subscriber base numbered 175 million at the same date.

pocket powersome of the strongest brands in the tele-coms space are those the consumer carries in his pocket: they belong to the mobile handset makers.

Apple’s brand value of $27.41 billion, up from $6.93 billion a year ago, exceeds that


top 50 BraNDs

The methodology employed in the Brand Finance Telecoms 500 uses a discounted cash flow (DCF) technique to discount estimated future royalties, at an appropriate discount rate, to arrive at a net present value (NPV) of the trademark and associated intellectual property: the brand value. The steps are:1. Obtain brand-specific financial and revenue data. 2. Model the market to identify market demand and the position of individual brands in the context of all other market

competitors. Three forecast periods were used:l Historical financial results up to 2011. Where 2011 results are not available consensus forecasts are used.l A five-year forecast period (2012-2016), based on three data sources (consensus forecasts, historic growth and GDP growth).l Perpetuity growth, based on a combination of growth expectations (GDP and consensus forecasts).3. establish the royalty rate for each brand. This is done by:l Calculating brand strength – on a scale of 0 to 100, according to a number of attributes across three main categories: financial, risk and security, and brand equity.l use brand strength to determine ßrandßeta® Index score l apply ßrandßeta® Index score to the royalty rate range to determine the royalty rate for the brand. The royalty rate is determined by a combination of the sector of operation, historic royalties paid in that sector and profitability of the company.4. Calculate future royalty income stream.5. Calculate the discount rate specific to each brand, taking account of its size, geographical presence, reputation, gearing and brand rating (see below).6. Discount future royalty stream (explicit forecast and perpetuity periods) to a net present value – ie: the brand value. royalty relief approachbrand finance uses the royalty relief methodology that determines the value of the brand in relation to the royalty rate that would be payable for its use were it owned by a third party. The royalty rate is applied to future revenue to determine an earnings stream that is attributable to the brand. The brand earnings stream is then discounted back to a net present value.

The royalty relief approach is used for three reasons: it is favoured by tax authorities and the courts because it calculates brand values by reference to documented third-party transactions; it can be done based on publicly available financial information and it is compliant to the requirement under the International Valuation Standards Committee (IVSC) to determine fair Market Value of brands.Brand ratingsThese are calculated using brand finance’s ßrandßeta® analysis, which benchmarks the strength, risk and future potential of a brand relative to its competitors on a scale ranging from aaa to D. It is conceptually similar to a credit rating.

The data used to calculate the ratings comes from various sources including bloomberg, annual reports and brand finance research.Valuation Dateall brand values in the report are for the end of the year, 31 December 2011.

eXplaNatioN of MetHoDology

of all but the top three operators; it is also the only other company in the ranking apart from Vodafone to have a AAA+ rating.

And the draw of the Apple brand is intensifying. in late January the company revealed it sold 37.04 million iphones in the 14 weeks to the end of December, more than double the number it sold in the year-earlier quarter, while ipad unit sales grew to 15.43 million from 7.3 million.

but where Apple has succeeded, others are struggling. nokia in particular has seen its brand value nosedive; it lost the top spot in the table this year, sliding to number three behind Apple and samsung. similarly, nokia sold 19.5 million smart-phones in the third quarter of 2011, pushing it into second place in the market behind samsung, according to Gartner, which tracks device sales to end users.

nonetheless, the company has confi-dence in the strength of the nokia brand as it seeks to turn its fortunes around. in May 2011 it abandoned its mobile services brand ovi in favour of bringing those services under the nokia umbrella. “by centralising our services identity under one brand, not two, we will reinforce the powerful master brand of nokia and unify our brand architecture,” said Jerri DeVard, nokia’s chief marketing officer, at the time.

Another struggler sony ericsson has slipped from number seven to eighth in the table, its 2011 brand value and enter-prise value having been restated to correct an over-valuation in 2011. the company is also taking steps to boost its market position, and brand will be key. the part-nership between sony and ericsson is in the process of being dissolved, the former having agreed to buy out its partner for €1.05 billion in cash and a cross-licensing deal in october. At the time the compa-nies intimated that the sony ericsson brand would be replaced, possibly with something completely new, but at the Consumer electronics show in Las Vegas in January, sony unveiled its first handset in more than a decade under its own brand: the sony Xperia ion.

next in the table comes China’s Huawei, entering at number seven, while local rival Zte stands at number 10. both companies are keen to establish

themselves as household names in the mobile devices market, having previously focused on selling white label devices.

Zte saw the brand value of its handsets business more than double to $1.22 billion in 2012 and is making a concerted effort to build its brand in western europe in particular. it became the world’s fourth largest handset maker in terms of unit shipments in the third quarter of last year with a 4.7% share, according to strategy Analytics. it now aims to build up its own brand off the back of that scale.

“[we’re working hard to] get the Zte brand out there,” said Chris edwards, european marketing and business devel-opment director at Zte, speaking at the UK launch of the Microsoft-powered Zte tania smartphone last month. “we’ve got the scale, we’ve got the cred-ibility, the industry knows what we’re about,” edwards said; “[now we need to] get the consumer.”

Zte has also made it clear that it is willing to invest in building up that brand profile. Late last year it agreed to sponsor the ongoing tour of emerging british rapper professor Green in order to push the Zte brand to the youth market in the UK.

the big players in the hardware space may not have same consumer recognition as the handset makers, but their brands certainly have some pulling power. there was little change in brand value for the top four, Cisco taking the lead with a brand worth $12.87 billion. but fifth-placed nokia siemens networks, whose brand was worth more than that of major rival Alcatel-Lucent in 2011, saw its brand value fall by $1.4 billion.

the vendor in november announced its intention to focus solely on the mobile broadband space, shedding various non-core business units and 17,000 jobs.

“the fall in nokia siemens’ brand value relates a drop in revenues and a reduction in brand strength following poor performance,” says bird. “the JV is preparing for an ipo and any spin-off may well require the new company to require its own brand in the long run,” he says.

Although it had a negative impact on nokia siemens’ brand, the decision to focus on one particular area of the indus-try may well have found favour with our friend Aesop. “please all, and you will please none,” he warned in the 6th century bC. n

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NetWorK strategies

Telecoms operators embrace pair bonding and vectoring techniques to get the most out of their copper, but that could be bad news for fTTH. By Mary lennighan

couNtiNg THe COPPeRSN E X T - G E N E R A T I O N A C C E S S

fixed operators are starting to look seriously at techniques that will help them get more out of their

copper access networks. with technical and regulatory hurdles diminishing, the market looks set to take off, but that could be bad news for the nascent fibre-to-the-home (fttH) market.

telekom Austria last month announced that it will be the first in the world to launch a commercial vectored VDsL offer. Meanwhile, bt has agreed a band plan change in the UK that will enable it to boost broadband speeds over copper, and in the Us At&t has been using copper bonding techniques to extend the reach of its U-Verse iptV service for some time.

“there is potential for these acceler-ated DsL products,” says rupert wood, Analysys Mason principal analyst. “these copper technologies will be particularly attractive in western europe,” he adds. “[there are] significant coverage gains to be made in some markets.”

A recent study conducted by Analysys Mason showed that france potentially has the most to gain; an additional one third of copper lines in the country could reach speeds of 30 Mbps–the eU’s targeted speed for all households by 2020– through a combination of vector-ing and bonding. However, VDsL has yet to be authorised in france.

but there are other countries that could benefit from vectoring, which eliminates crosstalk on copper cables, and bonding, whereby copper pairs are bonded together, both of which boost speed and reach. the UK is one example.

bt’s fibre-to-the-cabinet (fttC) service, with VDsL into the home, is based on a 7 MHz band plan–that is, the frequency band in which it provides the service–enabling speeds of up to 40 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream. Last year it agreed to extend that band plan to 17 MHz, a move that will enable “a doubling of the ‘up to’ rates,” says George

williamson, director of strategic network design, at bt openreach. once fully productised, it will facilitate download speeds of up to 80 Mbps.

bt’s band plan change effectively provides “faster speeds to people who are already on the fastest speeds,” but doesn’t have a big impact in terms of extending coverage, says wood. However, he predicts that by using other methods bt could significantly extend its broadband reach. 91% of UK households are connected by a sufficiently short sub-loop to get 30 Mbps services already, he says. “bt could expand [that] by eight percentage points with bonding and vectoring,” he says.

openreach is trialing vectoring now. “it will support us as we move to higher take-up,” of high-speed fttC/VDsL services, says williamson.

it is also considering pair bonding. “[bonding is] less about rates and more about coverage and reach,” williamson says. bt’s network has on average 1.4 pairs per business and 1.2 per residence. “there are some spare pairs,” he says.

telekom Austria, meanwhile, has launched the first phase of its vectored VDsL project in the small town of Korneuberg and plans a countrywide deployment in the second half of this year. “the copper network will be able to achieve data transmission speeds of up to 100 Mbps and 50 Mbps at distances of up to 300 metres and 800 metres respec-tively,” the company announced. the equipment will be provided by Alcatel-Lucent, which in september announced it would also supply vectoring technol-ogy to belgacom. However, the belgian incumbent does not plan to roll it out until 2014.

swisscom also sees vectored VDsL as a complement to fibre. the technology still needs to be worked out, “but i think we’re getting there,” says stéphane Dufour, head of strategy and innovation. but any deployment will not happen soon.

Vectoring is complex to roll out; “it’s not a software upgrade,” he says.

Kpn is taking a more positive approach. According to wood, the Dutch incum-bent is already doing pair bonding, will launch vectoring this year, and plans to commercialise phantom mode–where only one of the four wires in a bonded pair acts as a ground wire, rather than two, freeing up a third signal wire–in 2013. but while the technology is moving forwards, there are still potential regula-tory hurdles.

“there is some work to be done in most countries, but in the end it shouldn’t be insuperable,” says wood.

one issue for pair bonding is the crea-tion of appropriate wholesale models. And vectoring is incompatible with sub-loop unbundling, since it requires a single point of control for all copper lines in a bundle.

openreach has some customers using its sub-loop unbundling product in the UK, but the numbers are not massive, williamson says. in an area where sub-loop unbundling would be likely to happen, “you would think twice about the investment,” in vectoring, he says.

Meanwhile Dutch regulator opta says it will address the issue of the incompat-ibility of vectoring and VDsL should it arise, although the eU would prefer it to require Kpn to create a virtual unbun-dled product.

there are already virtual unbundled local access (VULA) products on the market in the UK and in Austria, says wood. “technologies like vectoring will find their way into these VULA prod-ucts,” he predicts.

what is certain is that new copper access technologies will have an impact on fibre-to-the-home plans.

“the speed at which [operators] progress with fttH depends on how the copper business is going,” says wood. if it’s going well, “these fttH deploy-ments are going to be a bit slower.” n

Introducing...

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Join in our series of mini-conferences connecting buyers and sellers of telecom products and services in a focused, cost-effective and engaged environment.

LTE Opportunities14 March 2012, 76 Portland Place, LondonSpectrum allocation for high speed mobile data services has a massive impact on mobile operators’ business models. We will look at the current scenario, examine the case studies, and how operators can exploit the revenue opportunities of new data services.

Emerging Markets - Another BRIC in the Wall?10 April 2012, 76 Portland Place, LondonFor operators looking to exploit options outside their domestic market, BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are not the only emerging markets to watch. We will examine the hottest markets and regions, and how opportunities vary by location.

Cloud Security3 May 2012, 76 Portland Place, LondonCloud has become one of the hottest topics in telecoms, but the biggest concern is security. Hear from leading proponents in this area, and discuss with those who are actually addressing the issues.

Wholesale Market Update4 July 2012, 76 Portland Place, LondonThe business is changing from just selling capacity to offering countless services to enable the entire telecoms market. We will bring together leading carriers, emerging players and wholesale thought leaders, to look at what is happening in this fast moving sector.

Olympics – A Gold Medal Effort?13 September 2012, 76 Portland Place, LondonThe games are over, so how did communications fair? Was it a gold medal effort, or did telecoms fall at the first hurdle?

M2M9 October 2012, 76 Portland Place, LondonFrom remote monitoring to healthcare, advertising, and fleet management, the scope of M2M is extensive and according to Machina Research will increase 12-fold in the next decade. We discuss why this is and how mobile operators can take their fair share.

Content – Location Based Services29 November 2012, 76 Portland Place, LondonOperators have the relationship with the customer and a multitude of unique data assets. Join us to examine the opportunities surrounding Location Based Services and discuss how to monetise the opportunity, rather than it becoming another part of the content discussion where operators are bit-part players.

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(TeleGeography)

sMartpHoNes taKe lte leaD iN 2015The number of LTe subscriptions worldwide will grow to 592 million in 2016, equivalent to 7.3% of all mobile subscriptions at that date, according to Pyramid Research. The firm predicts that PC-based connections, which dominate the market at present, will continue to lead through 2014, after which date smartphones will become the biggest device segment. in 2016 Pyramid Research forecasts that there will be almost 200 million PC and hotspot LTe connections, equivalent to 33% of all LTe subscriptions and 29% of all PC mobile broadband subscriptions.

ViDeo calliNg gets realfewer than 47 million consumers were using video services – includ-ing telephony, sharing and messaging – at the end of 2011, according to Abi research. furthermore, although that number is set to grow to 390 million in 2016, the analyst firm notes that operators are now more realistic about the revenues they can generate through video communications, once regarded as ‘the new voice’; only a small number of consumers are willing to pay a premium for video calls, the firm says.

$65 billion IT spending in the Middle East,

Africa and Turkey in 2012. (IDC)

BroaDBaND BooMThe number of broadband connections worldwide will reach 949 million by 2015, up from 600 million in 2011, driven in particular by burgeoning demand for internet access in China and other fast-growing Asia-Pacific economies, according to iHs. The company predicts that the total will reach 676 million – 13% growth on-year – in 2012. Last year China alone accounted for 38% of all new broadband subscribers worldwide. The Asia-Pacific region is forecast to record a 16% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2010-2015 period, while CAGRs in eastern europe, Latin America, and the Middle east and Africa will range from 16%-33%. europe will grow at 7% over the same period and north America at 5%. ADsL accounts for more than half of all net additions, taking a 51% share in Q2 2011, driven by demand in developing regions like China and Latin America; fibre technologies claimed 34%, cable modems 9%, and VDsL 6%.

Source: Pyramid Research

tV tHeMesthere will be 892 million connected tVs in homes worldwide by the end of 2016, up from 82 million at the end of 2011, according to informa telecoms & Media. smart tVs will account for 43.1% of all television sales in 2016, the company predicts. 244 million set-top-boxes will be sold globally, of which 42% will be internet-enabled. At the same date, there will be 1.8 billion non-pC, in-home devices capable of accessing the internet, up from 341 million at the end of last year.

772 millionThe number of smartphones

in use worldwide at end-2011. (Canalys)

100%

90%

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70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

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Sub

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er b

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2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Source: IHS iSuppli Research

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ons

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global broadband subscribers

lte subscription breakdown by devicen Handset n Tablet n PC n M2M

Opportunity and strategy for carriers

and operators28 – 29 March 2012, Bangkok, Thailand

Gathering the region’s most established telcos, this is the best platform for industry players to network and capitalise on the business opportunities. Over 150 decision-makers will be at the show to share growth strategies and do business over 2 days.

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CAT TELECOM

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China Unicom

Idris T. VasiCEO

DST Group

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