David George-Cosh: April 2009 archives
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Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: David George-Cosh on April 30, 2009 5:03 PM
Tags:
apple, cellphone, handset, mobile, nokia, RIM, samsung
The signs have been there, but a report by telecoms consultancy Strategy Analytics seem to confirm what many already believe: the global economic downturn caused the weakest ever growth rate since the modern cellphone industry began in 1983. Ouch.
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Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: David George-Cosh on April 29, 2009 2:05 PM
Tags:
facebook, twitter
Nielsen Online just released a rather interesting study today, suggesting that 60% of Twitter users do not use the popular microblogging service one month after they sign up. The number was even higher prior to the "Oprah bump", in which the US talk show host demonstrated Twitter to millions of viewers, pushing the website into the mainstream. "Twitter's audience retention rate, or the percentage
of a given month's users who come back the following month, is
currently about 40 percent," David Martin, Nielsen Online's vice
president of primary research, said in a statement. "For most of the past 12 months, pre-Oprah, Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention." The blogosphere, sensing blood in the water, spread the news in earnest.
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 Uh oh, Nokia. After seeing its net profit plummet 90% last week, credit rating agency Moody's have delivered a grim outlook of the Finnish mobile giant, downgrading its debt outlook from stable to negative. Why? Well, it's not just because the recession has stopped people from buying new phones, it's also stopped people from buying Nokia's relatively antiquated devices. Think about it - when you think exciting, hot new phones, you think of the iPhone or the BlackBerry. When Nokia comes to mind, you'd likely get an image of a five-year old candybar model than its latest N96 smartphone. Moody's explains:
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Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: David George-Cosh on April 22, 2009 6:13 PM
Tags:
abu, alcatel-lucent, award, cell, cellphone, Dhabi, east, etisalat, middle, mobile, phone
Alcatel-Lucent, one of the world's largest telecommunication equipment makers, announced today that Etisalat has the least call drops in the Middle East, according to independent research.
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Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: David George-Cosh on April 22, 2009 3:31 PM
Tags:
Abu, Dhabi, du, etisalat, fibre, ftth, hardware, Huawei, infrastructure, internet, IPTV, telecoms, Tilgrin
 du, the UAE's second-largest telcommunications company, has quietly signed a contract with Swedish firm Tilgin to upgrade its Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network infrastructure for roughly US$800,000.
The agreement, which is not listed on du's press release website but is readily available on several industry blogs, will bolster the company's high-definition IPTV offerings when it makes an official commercial rollout of the service sometime in the future.
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 In today's paper, Tom Gara reported that Etisalat, the UAE's largest telecommunications company, reported its quarterly profits are up 4 per cent compared to the same period last year. The company also said it has added 41,000 new mobile subscribers in the quarter, less than one-fifth of its new subscribers in the year-earlier period. While no company can shake off the effects from the global recession, the subscriber numbers beg the question - have we begun to see real mobile saturation in the country? It may be too soon to tell, but a report released today by US-based telecoms consultancy, ABI Research, may shed some light on how companies like Etisalat can avoid slowing growth.
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A journey into technology in the Middle East. If it beeps, buzzes, shines or glows, you'll read about it here on Beep Beep. Read more
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