Nokia raises forecast for total handset market

Nokia has raised its forecast of growth in the total mobile handset market by five percentage points. At the company’s annual general meeting on March 30, Jorma Ollila, chairman and chief executive of Nokia, said: "Due to strong subscriber growth, we have now updated our global mobile device market volume estimate for this year.

"Nokia estimates that in the year 2006, the mobile device market volume will increase globally 15% or more from our estimate of 795 million units in 2005. Previously, we estimated that the global mobile device market volume would grow 10% or more this year from last year's estimate."

He also repeated the company's earlier statements that Nokia expects approximately 80% of the next billion subscribers to come from the emerging markets, and that it expects the global mobile subscriber base to reach three billion during 2008.

In concluding, Ollila said: "I believe that Nokia is well placed for some new innovative leaps,” describing what we have seen so far as "the first era” of the mobile industry.

Hotxt lowers SMS costs

US software entrepreneur Doug Richard, best known for the Dragons Den TV programme, on Monday launched Hotxt, a service offering unlimited text messages for £1 a week.

The texts are sent as packets of data, avoiding text message charges which are high relative to their cost to mobile operators. Users of Hotxt will also incur data charges from their mobile operator, estimated by Richard to be about about 1 pence a message.

The software for the service can be requested by registering on Hotxt’s website. Byt access is not available to all UK mobile subscribers. For example, O2 pre-pay customers can’t use it.
http://www.hoxt.com/

Mobile music gets a boost

Several music labels and Monstermob, the mobile ringtone and content company, are launching new music downloading services this week, following a decision by Vodafone to waive the data charge for full track music downloads.

Previously, operators have not imposed a data charge for downloading songs from their own “walled garden” portals, but users who wanted to download from third parties could pay as much as £7.50 in data charges to download a single, one megabyte song.

Vodafone’s move means its customers won’t pay data charges when they download songs from Ministry of Sound, V2 or Monstermob – they will just pay for the music.

A typical track downloaded to a mobile costs around £1.50. Vodafone’s move is expected to be closely watched – and probably followed - by other operators. It is a wise one as data charges are nonsensical to the user and entirely unrelated to the value of the content they are getting.

Vodafone is expected to charge mobile music sellers a wholesale data rate – thought to be around 30p a megabyte – for tracks downloaded by their customers. So if many more tracks are downloaded, Vodafone could still benefit.

Mobile robbery

Half of all London’s 38,000 street robberies between April last year and the end of February involved mobile phones, according to Tuesday’s Evening Standard.

People are walking about with “fifty quid held to their ears,” it quoted
Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin of Scotland Yard as saying.

“The key thing I want to see is for these [mobile industry] companies to block stolen phones across all networks," he added. "Security must improve or we will be seeking legislation to enforce it.”

Many handsets are stolen for overseas export. Stolen phones are also used by criminals to co-ordinate other crimes anonymously.

Motorola to lead in low-cost handsets

Motorola is likely to dominate the ultra low-cost handset (ULCH) segment of the mobile market, according to Gavin Byrne, author of a new Informa report.

He says: “Due to its experience, relationships and market knowledge gained
with the [GSM Association’s] Emerging Market Handset Programme, Motorola is likely to dominate the ULCH segment until 2007.

“While this may not encourage significant innovation, [Motorola CEO] Ed Zander's 1,000 day target for Motorola to become the number one vendor in terms of handset shipments may drive the company to own the segment, obliging it to produce the most compelling ULCH.”

The GSM Association’s low-cost handset progamme has extended its endorsement of Motorola as Emerging Market Handset Programme vendor for another six months from July 1 2006.

Competition is likely to increase, however. At 3GSM in Barcelona last month, Nokia also said it would be investing in low-cost handsets.

Informa’s Ultra Low-cost Handsets report points out that reductions will also be needed in distribution, retail and operator costs – perhaps through greater consolidation among handset vendors - for the ULCH segment to take off.

Assuming low-cost handset prices fall from about $40 now to $28 in 2010, Informa predicts that sales of new ULCHs will pass 36 million in 2007 and reach almost 48 million devices in 2010, representing 5.3% of total new device sales by 2010.

http://www.motorola.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4270681.stm
http://telecoms.msgfocus.com/c/1yckJM2pr7q4CjS
http://www.nokia.com

Women in mobile (not)

There are still too few women at senior levels in the mobile industry if the statistics from last month’s 3GSM mobile show are anything to go by.

This year about one in six (15.65%) of those attending were female. According to the organisers, 7,825 women went to the show out of a total of 50,000.

The buzz on Barcelona

Deutsche Bank has produced a lively 56-page report on 3GSM, Europe’s largest mobile show, in its DBuzz (Vol. 40) - Barca special. Its conclusion: “pricing pressure and confusion reigns.”

“Having been to 3GSM over the last 10 years,” it says “there is typically a theme or technology which takes the focus. This year, the industry appears to be unsure of how to monetise data development and in some instances is pulling in different directions (mobile TV, DRM [Digital Rights Management] etc).

“In the interim, perhaps the most unanimous theme from Barcelona was the caution on the mobile voice market following recent tariff changes and the fear that roaming revenues [under pressure from the EC] will add increased pressure on top line growth.”

Mobile TV for stay at homes

A Nokia analysis of mobile TV trials in France, Spain, the UK and Finland found that many users watched mobile TV at home. Almost half of those in the French and Spanish pilots claimed to mainly watch it at home.

In the UK, some people may have chosen to watch TV on their mobiles rather than on their home TV set because it gave them additional channels to terrestrial broadcasting. Almost a third of participants in the UK pilot said mobile TV represented their first real taste of multi-channel TV.

www.nokia.com
www.nokia.com/mobiletv

Nokia photo diary

Nokia has brought out a new version of its Lifeblog. This enables users of its Nseries mobiles, such as the N70, to add audio notes to a kind of photo and text message diary of events.

The company says “if you used the calendar on your Nokia Nseries device to input an entry for CeBIT [the IT exhibition], photos taken during that time will be tagged with this information..., making them easier to find in the future.”

Video clips can also be included in the blog, and the information can be transferred to a PC to free up space on the mobile.

The PC version of the software can be downloaded for free now. The version of the new software for mobiles will be available from the end of April 2006.

www.nokia.com/lifeblog

Photo fit

Sony Ericsson has launched two Cyber-shot camera phones with 3.2 megapixels and some extra software to make taking photos easier. Its BestPic software takes images just before and just after the shot is taken, so that users can pick the best one, or the one where their subject did not move.

The phones, the K800 and K790, are available in the second quarter. Some innovations in mobile photography were also evident at 3GSM 2006. US-based Vizrea’s software can be set up to automatically transmit all photos taken to Vizrea’s server and/or the user’s PC – complete with caption if the user adds one.

The software looks simple to use and saves labelling/organising photos later. It also means that – if you want – your whole photo collection can be stored on the web (privately unless you choose to share) and accessed from a mobile. This means if you bump into an old friend while travelling you can show off your kid, ski lodge or whatever.

However, because the photos are stored as small files, the server store only provides a limited backup if your photo collection is lost or stolen. Mike Toutonghi, chief executive, started the company because he noticed how difficult people were finding it to send picture messages.

A Swedish company, Scalado, has developed software that enables you to crop, brighten or in other ways edit your pics before you send them. Normally, this is quite a challenge because you need more spare memory on your phone to edit a picture and to save an edited picture, than you need to store one.

It has got round the problem by using a kind of streaming so the picture is effectively edited a bit at a time, though it does not look that way to the user.

http://www.SonyEricsson.com
http://www.vizrea.com
http://www.scalado.com
http://www.3gsmworldcongress.com

For examples of pictures taken with a camera phone for a Nokia competition
http://www.seenew.com

Aguilera goes mobile

Sony Ericsson and Orange announced a partnership on Friday in which they will both sponsor raunchy music star Christina Aguilera.

Orange will sell Sony Ericsson Walkman phones, including the white, clamshell W300i, which becomes available in the second quarter. It will also release exclusive Aguilera song remixes, ringtones and wallpaper linked to her new album and concert tour.

Ms Aguilera came across as quite switched on, not only about technology but also about men at the press conference in London’s Mandarin Oriental hotel. The two French executives, Herve Fontaine of Sony Ericsson and Frank Boulben of Orange, looked as pleased as punch to get a kiss on each cheek from her and one of them blushed.

Paparazzi were standing on chairs to get a better shot.

Other mobile operators will also be able to sell the Walkman-branded music mobiles, but Orange will provide some software customisation for its users.

The recently-married Ms Aguilera said mobile music “is great for artists” but added that she hoped people would still buy CDs. Asked if she would be toning down her stage act since marrying, she said: “There’s always a little naughty in me.”

The Orange/Sony Ericsson European sponsorship deal with the Sony BMG artist lasts for nine months.