Sony Ericsson sees net profit fall 48%

Sony Ericsson sees net profit fall 48%
Sony Ericsson today announced an expected large drop in first quarter profits, attributed to shrinking demand for mid- and high-end mobile phones in Europe. The world's fourth largest handset manufacturer reported a 47.6% fall in net profit to €133 million, down from €254 million a year earlier. Sales fell by 7.6% in terms of value to €2.7 billion during the period. The company sold 22.3 million handsets in the quarter at an average selling price of €121, compared to 21.8 million at €134 last year.Last month the company warned that first quarter earnings could fall by more than a half. However, the vendor expects a recovery in the second half of this year. "Our product announcements during the first quarter have been well received by the industry, and we expect to see a positive effect from these announcements during the second half of 2008," president Dick Komiyama said in a statement. At the Mobile World Congress in February Sony Ericsson announced a range of new handsets and reiterated its intention to become the third largest handset vendor by 2011. Meanwhile the company today added to its HSDPA product range with the launch of two new handsets: the Z780 and G502.

Nokia eyes return to South Korea
Nokia, the world's largest handset manufacturer, looks set to return to South Korea ahead of an expected opening up of the country's handset regulations. According to local reports, the Finnish vendor is in talks with the region's largest operator, SK Telecom, on supplying handsets to the operator by the end of this year. Nokia has withdrawn from the South Korean market on two previous occasions after failing to win a significant market share, the last time being in January 2003.
Last month MBB reported that South Korea's three mobile operators are working together to overturn government regulations which block foreign-designed handsets from the market. To date local manufacturers Samsung, LG and Pantech have dominated the country's handset market. Nokia already has a large manufacturing facility in South Korea but currently exports all of its locally produced handsets.

T-Mobile, Qualcomm back open source handsets
T-Mobile USA has hinted that it is working on "a new approach" that will see an increasing number of its handsets adopt open source mobile platforms. Speaking at the Wireless Innovations conference in California this week, T-Mobile's general manager of new business development, Joe Sims, said that the operator will open up its device platforms to developers via open software development kits and applications programming interfaces, reports EE Times. T-Mobile has been a high-profile supporter of Android - the open source mobile platform developed by Google and announced earlier this year - and expects to be one of the first US operators to ship a device running the platform later this year. Sims declined to reveal what other open source platforms T-Mobile was looking at, according to the report. He added that the strategy was aimed at reducing the time it took to develop new applications, which he said can take as long as 3 to 9 months to reach handsets.
Meanwhile, silicon vendor Qualcomm said at the show it was working with its handset OEM partners on more than five Android-based handsets that are scheduled to ship in the next 12 to 18 months. According to Sayeed Choudhury, a product manager for systems software at Qualcomm's chip division, the Android handsets will have similar features to the iPhone but will be available at mass market prices and offer better internet multimedia functionality. Qualcomm also supports its own Brew environment, Microsoft's Windows Mobile and the LiMo Foundations' Linux platform.

UK regulator to rethink 2G spectrum 're-farming'
UK regulator Ofcom is to rethink its plan to repurpose certain 2G spectrum for new high-speed 3G services after receiving higher than expected interest in the airwaves, Ofcom CEO Ed Richards told a UK government committee yesterday. The Guardian reports that Ofcom will now delay a planned official communication on the scheme in favour of further consultation. The newspaper notes that the delay will please UK mobile operators O2 and Vodafone, which had both reacted furiously to Ofcom's proposals when they were unveiled in September last year. Ofcom argued that the 're-farming' of the spectrum from 2G to 3G would enable cheaper and faster mobile broadband services but the mobile operators claimed the move would disrupt existing 2G services.
Meanwhile, Ofcom's plan to auction new 2.6GHz spectrum made available by the switch to digital TV - the so-called 'digital dividend' - has also come under scrutiny this week. Richards said the regulator would not delay its planned timetable for the auction despite the fact that much of the spectrum will not be able to be used until 2012 when it is vacated by analogue broadcasters. Bidding on the auction is scheduled to begin this summer. Unstrung reported this week that the strategy could encourage 'spectrum hoarding,' with the country's existing mobile operators incentivised to buy spectrum purely to prevent new competitors or competing technologies from using it.

Intel pumps up to US$500M in Taiwan WiMAX
Chip vendor Intel announced this week it is to invest US$500 million in Taiwan over the next five years, with the majority aimed at promoting rollout of WiMAX technology in the country. Lil Mohan, managing director of Intel's WiMAX program, told reporters that Intel expects WiMAX infrastructure to be ready in some Asian markets by 2009-2010.
Intel's investment in Taiwanese WiMAX follows a similar announcement by the country's government, which pledged last year to put aside US$664 million to invest in the technology. Mohan predicted that Japan would be the first country in the region to deploy WiMAX, followed by Taiwan and India. He added that commercial deployments of WiMAX in the US are expected in the second or third quarter of this year. Acer, the world's third-largest laptop vendor, also announced this week that it is planning to launch laptops with WiMAX capabilities in June or July 2008.