Page 6 - Mobile World Daily - Day 4

NEWS

Orange puts pieces into The company also recently “I’ve changed my view,” Rennard
place for MEA growth strengthened its position in Egypt by said candidly. One reason for this
increasing its stake in Mobinil to 99 per change of heart was that 3G
MANAGING EDITOR: By Anne Morris MEA unit will also publish its cent from around 94 per cent for a total smartphone prices declined to around
Justin Springham results as a separate region under cost of €209.6 million. Rennard said $50. Orange started selling the Alcatel
Orange is building the the Orange Group. Mobinil should take on the Orange OneTouch Pixi smartphone, and in
SENIOR EDITOR: foundations for its brand this year, and also expects the 2014 sold 860,000 devices across its
Steve Costello continued growth in the Although Rennard said the long-delayed converged licences to be MEA footprint.
Middle East and Africa (MEA), and process is an internal measure and launched in Egypt this year. That will
CONTRIBUTORS: will have no impact on customers enable the market’s three mobile Encouraged by this, Rennard
Saleha Riaz, Ronan Shields, Richard Handford, also hopes to be able to exploit and partners, he noted that it would operators to offer fixed and mobile supported the launch of Orange
Paul Rasmussen, Anne Morris, Joanne Taaffe, make it easier for Orange to bring in services, while also allowing Telecom Klif, the Mozilla OS-based
Joseph Waring, Ken Wieland future opportunities for new shareholders or enter into Egypt to launch an MVNO. smartphone launched at Mobile
mergers in the region. Congress this week that also
ALL ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES TO: consolidation in the region. However, Rennard is not includes a bundle of voice, texts
showdailysales@mobileworldcongress.com Rennard pointed out that Africa, convinced that the market can and data for around $40.
The France-based operator is in for example, has around 800 million support four players, even if one of
PUBLISHER: mobile subscribers but 200 them is an MVNO. The smartphone will be launched
Rick Costello the process of placing all of its 20 operators; in China, one operator - in different MEA markets in the
China Mobile - accounts for about As well as its organisational coming weeks, and Rennard said he
PRODUCTION MANAGER: units in MEA under one holding that many customers. “There is changes, Orange has also is already seeing positive signals
Samantha Burke room for consolidation in Africa,” developed a strong smartphone from local managers.
company, replacing the multiple he said, adding that Orange’s focus sales strategy in MEA - although it’s
ART DIRECTION & PRODUCTION: is on building up its position in its clear that Rennard was not initially While he believes that Orange
Russell Smith, IntuitiveDesign UK Ltd., holding companies that currently existing markets. keen on that approach because he has proved its smartphone sales
13 North St, Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Maldon, did not believe that Orange was in strategy is a good one, it remains to
Essex CM9 8TF, UK, exist and thereby creating a simpler the business of selling devices. be seen if the Orange Klif strategy
email: russell@intuitive-design.co.uk will also be a success.
and clearer management structure.
PRINTED BY:
Servicios Gráficas Giesa, Barcelona According to Marc Rennard, EVP

for Africa, the Middle East and Asia,

the process should be completed by

June this year, by which time the

Whilst care has been taken to ensure that the data in BBVA sees system that dates back to the 60 Xiaomi: cent of gross margins. That’s a
this publication is accurate, the publisher cannot Apple, Samsung and 70s; what moderator David Freshness fortune relative to the margins we
accept and hereby disclaims any liability to any party as threats – Kirkpatrick termed a “spaghetti of brand key look at,” he said.
to loss or damage caused by errors or omissions and likes it platform” which still underpins the to our
resulting from negligence, accident or any other kind of batch processing associated success “We have very few products – just
cause. All rights reserved . No part of this publication By Richard Handford with old-school banking. two smartphones per year -- which
may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or By Joseph Waring gives us greater economies of scale
transmitted in any form electronic, mechanical, Spain’s BBVA is a bank that no Gonzalez wants to shake up that at the production level and the
photocopying or otherwise without the prior longer wants to behave like model – and is staking the bank’s Xiaomi’s global VP Hugo ability to keep costs down.”
permission of the publisher. one and, according to CEO resources on pulling it off. BBVA’s Barra claims the company’s
Francisco Gonzalez, is happy to live cloud-based wallet app has 450 fresh brand will give it an Its weekly beta software updates,
A GSMA Publication with rivals moving onto its patch. people working on it. So far, it’s only edge over better known rivals as it based on input from its large beta
All content © GSMA Ltd. 2007-2015. All available in Spain but Mexico, the US moves into new markets. community, is something he said
rights reserved. Earlier this week at Mobile World and Latin America are set to follow. that “best defines us” and shows
Congress, Samsung announced its “It’s one thing to have a well- the company’s commitment to
In an effort to minimise the environmental impact of plan to launch a new mobile And that’s just the starting point in known brand, but it’s another thing continually improving the customer
our event, the GSMA promotes the usage of recycled payment service, as the South terms of how the bank’s resources to have a brand everyone is tired of, experience.
materials and waste reduction wherever possible. Korean vendor takes on Apple Pay are likely to be heading over the next especially when targeting the early
Building on this commitment, we are now pursuing (which launched at the end of 2014). few years. Currently just 3,000 of its adopters,” he said. It has built up a beta track of 10
official Carbon Neutral certification of Mobile World 110,000 staff work on the digital per cent of its over 100 million user
Congress under the international standard PAS 2060. But Gonzalez is sanguine about side but in five years Gonzalez Barra, speaking Tuesday on a base worldwide, most of which use
the competition. “There is a threat reckons it will be a majority. panel discussion on content at its devices. Every Friday it pushes out
NEWS IN BRIEF... element which I like because Mobile World Congress, noted that software updates. He said it takes a
banking needs competitors. We Gonzalez added that about 1.2 Xiaomi doesn’t spend on above-the- few weeks for a change to move from
Globe to deploy need to be more efficient but we billion people around the world have line or below-the-line advertising the beta to the “stable” track.
Huawei’s SingleSON can also collaborate with them.” bank accounts, a figure that is and goes direct to customers as
limited because banking is “very much as possible. He said Xiaomi does something
Globe Telecom announced it BBVA is already adjusting its own expensive” he says. BBVA reckons similar with its hardware updates.
has contracted Huawei to approach as consumers move to another one or two billion might be “We generally don’t spend any
optimise its wireless network mobile and digital payments. Last year interested but not the traditional money on buying media. All of our With the absence of Apple and
performance using the it bought US banking startup Simple route. More likely, they will access conversations are via social media Google in the app store space in
vendor’s SingleSON (self- for $117 million and is also working their account through a mobile and is pretty much organic. We also China, it has had some success in the
organising network). The two with online payments firm Dwolla. phone. avoid intermediaries as much as mainland. It is ranked about number
companies formalised an possible, which can be up to 30 per three. “It’s the Wild West there
operation and maintenance But the Spanish bank, like all its Gonzalez was speaking during because there is no App Store or
(O&M) agreement in Barcelona peers, is stuck with a legacy IT the keynote session on digital Google Play, but we have no plans to
this week. Globe recently tested transactions and social interactions take that outside of China, because
the technology on 20,000 2G, yesterday morning. we’re working with Google as a
3G and 4G cells sites. Google Mobile Services partner.”
By Joanne Taaffe Tele2 still open to making
Modular VRAN acquisitions, sees fewer Tele2 is retrenching to better
outstrips the Cloud Tele2 knows a thing or two opportunities for MVNOs focus on providing profitable data
about buying and divesting services across its own networks.
Matrix, a new modular VRAN
from Dali Wireless, claims to international telecom “Operators need to mentally
outperform cloud-based RAN accept voice is free and gear up to
by allowing operators to operations. In January it reduced be successful in a data only world,”
optimise the use of their said Granryd.
existing network resources, the number of countries in which it
including spectrum. The The shift to charging for data is
flexibility and scalability of operates to nine, from a peak of 24, countries, we will do that,” said interesting -- even though there are closing MVNO opportunities,
Matrix means operators no Mats Granryd, CEO of Tele2, political challenges. There are believes Granryd.
longer need to overhaul their when the Norwegian Competition speaking on Tuesday in a session plenty of opportunities, but we
existing networks to meet entitled Enabling M&A for Industry have so far been reluctant,” said “We are not in favour of MVNOs.
current and future Authority (NCA) approved the sale Growth. Granryd. We believe we should own our own
technology trends. network. I don’t …. see OTT or
of its operations in the country to But we “never have the ambition Asked about the acquisition fixed players obtaining very
to be a 24 country player again.” strategies of large companies such lucrative MVNO agreements with
TeliaSonera. as Altice, Granryd advised caution. us. Those days are gone. We are
Central Asia, where Tele2 already very mindful of protecting data
Despite having over-expanded in operates in Kazakhstan, could “Big operators buying up whatever consumption.”
present opportunities. they can are rarely a success case. It
the past, the company does not rule bites them in the behind later.”
“The ‘stans on the whole are very
out future acquisitions.

“We are clearly looking for

distressed assets. If we can find the

[right opportunity], within specific

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