Telecompaper Headlines

(Telecompaper) Huawei held a press conference in London to showcase a number of new products centred around 5G. The company also noted that it will be holding its Industrial Digital Transformation Conference 2020 on 24-27 February, after Mobile World Congress was canceled. The event will be broadcast live to global audiences and will include six activities in Shenzhen, the UK and Switzerland. 

(Telecompaper) T-Mobile added nearly 1.6 million retail customers in 2019, including 1.3 million acquired with Tele2, to reach a total of 5.6 million at year-end. The growth was entirely in postpaid, including in Q4, when it added 83,000 postpaid subscribers. Its new fixed-mobile offer 'Uit en Thuis' likely gave a boost to quarterly subscriber growth and helped take the company to over 92 percent of retail customers on postpaid.

(Telecompaper) Softbank and Deutsche Telekom announced a revised agreement on the planned merger of their US mobile operators Sprint and T-Mobile. Softbank has agreed to accept a lower stake in the merged company than the original agreement signed in April 2018, in exchange for the potential to increase its stake over time. 

(Telecompaper) Google has released the first developer preview of Android 11, earlier than its previous development cycles. The latest version of the operating system is available for download on Pixel smartphones.  

(Telecompaper) Lenovo reported sales unchanged year-on-year for its fiscal third quarter to December, at USD 14.1 billion. Operating profit was still up 12 percent to USD 488 million, thanks to strength in premium PCs and profitability at its mobile business. Net profit increased 11 percent to USD 258 million. The company said it was seeing some impact on its supply chain and production due to the coronavirus outbreak, but would leverage its global footprint to minimise the effect on results. 

(Telecompaper) Telefonica reported annual revenues up 3.2 percent on an organic basis and OIBDA rose 1.9 percent, meeting the company's outlook for around 2 percent growth in 2019. Net debt also fell for an 11th consecutive quarter and was down 8 percent over the year to EUR 37.7 billion. For 2020, the Spanish operator forecast stable revenues, OIBDA and operating cash flow as a percentage of revenue. 

(Telecompaper) Cellcom Israel said it has entered a binding memorandum of understanding for the purchase of Golan Telecom's entire share capital for ILS 590 million. The agreed deal, subject still to due diligence, sees Golan Telecom rejecting a competing offer from rival Pelephone. 

(Telecompaper) The Telecom Infra Project announced the election of Santiago Tenorio, Vodafone Group's Head of Network Strategy and Architecture, as the new TIP Chairman, succeeding Axel Clauberg. Santiago has been a member of the TIP Board since 2017. 

(Telecompaper) Intel is in talks to sell its connected home unit to MaxLinear, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. 

(Telecompaper) Deutsche Telekom reported results for 2019 ahead of expectations and forecast further growth in 2020. Annual revenues increased 6.4 percent to EUR 80.5 billion, and adjusted EBITDA after leases improved 7.2 percent to EUR 24.7 billion, led by growth at T-Mobile US. Adjusted net profit rose 8.9 percent to EUR 4.9 billion, and free cash flow was up 15.9 percent to EUR 7.0 billion.

(Telecompaper) Qualcomm has announced its third-generation 5G modem-to-antenna system for smartphones, the Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System. The company said the device is the world's first 5G modem to support spectrum aggregation across all key 5G bands and combinations, including mmWave and sub-6 GHz using FDD and TDD. This will enable speeds of up to 7.5 Gbps down and 3 Gbps up. 

(Telecompaper) LG Electronics announced the 2020 K series lineup, including the LG K61, K51S and K41S smartphones. Inheriting advanced features first introduced in LG's premium smartphones, these phones come with upgraded cameras, multimedia functions and improved all-around performance, the company said in a press release. LG's 2020 K series will be available starting in Q2 in the Americas followed by key selected markets in Europe and Asia.

(Telecompaper) Apple said slower production due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) means it will not be able to meet expectations for the fiscal second quarter to end March. The company had guided for revenue of USD 63-97 billion from 58 billion the year before, and a gross margin of 38-39 percent. The company noted that the disruption to results is only temporary and that its business is fundamentally strong. 

(Telecompaper) Telecom Italia (TIM) and Spanish financial services provider Banco Santander have officially launched their partnership to offer a consumer finance delivery platform to TIM customers throughout Italy following the deal reached at the end of last year. TIM said instalment plan financing for product purchases will be progressively rolled out in TIM retail stores all over the country, with personal loans, credit cards and insurance products designed to meet customers' needs set to follow in the future.

(Telecompaper) Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has announced that, at the close of the 5G Call for Proposal on 17 February, it had received a total of three submissions. These include one each from Singtel Mobile Singapore and TPG Telecom, and a joint-submission from StarHub Mobile and M1. IMDA said it is evaluating the submissions and expects to award the spectrum by mid-2020.

(Telecompaper) Israeli operator Bezeq said its subsidiary Pelephone Communications has submitted a conditional proposal for the purchase in cash of the entire ownership and control of Golan Telecom for ILS 710 million. Bezeq said this proposal is valid until 15 April and is subject to the fulfillment of various conditions, including signing a binding agreement on terms, if they are agreed, and the approval by the boards of both Pelephone and the company. 

(Telecompaper) Vodafone Germany has announced that it is withdrawing the Unitymedia brand from the market. Unitymedia's shops will be redesigned with a Vodafone logo and the company will merge the product range of Unitymedia into its own. 

(Telecompaper) Five operators participated in the auction, namely Advanced Info Service' mobile unit AWN, dtac TriNet, TrueMove H Universal Communication (TUC), and state-owned operators CAT Telecom and TOT.

(Telecompaper) Motorola Solutions has been awarded USD 764.6 million in damages in a patent infringement and trade secrets suit against rival Hytera Communications in US federal court. 

(Telecompaper) America Movil has plans to spend another USD 8.5 billion on capital expenditures in 2020, similar to last year's investment, to continue expanding its fibre-optic infrastructure throughout Latin America and launch its first 5G networks, said the company's CEO Daniel Hajj, according to Reuters. In a call with investors following the publication of America Movil's full-year results, Hajj said 5G services will likely debut in Mexico this year and may arrive in Brazil as well, depending on the availability of spectrum.