Telecom Lead India: The recent quarter of 2012 has
brought mix results for the leading global telecom service providers across the
globe.
Major European telecom operators suffered massively due
to prevailed economic uncertainty, while on the flip side, American telecom
operators posted relatively better results due to good market penetration,
driven by LTE deployments.
For the European region, mobile major Vodafone posted 7.7
percent decline in revenue in the first quarter of 2012 at 10.7 billion pound.
Vodafone’s sales dipped to 10.76 billion pounds in June-ended quarter of 2012.
(Read this: Country-specific and regional revenue performance of Vodafone
in Q1)
Vodafone’s revenues were majorly impacted by the
heightened eurozone crisis, mainly in Spain and Italy, as well as the impact of
Mobile termination rates cuts.
The emerging markets, particularly India and Turkey,
showed improvement, grew 16.2 percent and 18.7 percent respectively.
Vodafone’s data revenue climbed organically reflecting an
increase in Europe smartphone penetration.
Vodafone looks for inorganic growth this year with
acquisitions of Cable and Wireless Worldwide (CWW) and Telestra’s New Zealand
operations. Emerging markets from Asia-Pacific and MEA region has brought good
revenues for Vodafone, and the company has stated focusing more on these
regions.
On the other hand, Spain-based Telefonica posted
relatively stable consolidated revenues of 15.4 billion euros for Q2 FY12, with
a year-on-year growth of 0.1 percent.
The company’s results were largely supported by growth in
its Latin American operations, mainly driven by the increasing penetration of
mobile broadband services.
Excluding Brazil, all other operations in the Latin
American region grew and in Europe, apart from Germany and UK, all other
operations of Telefonica posted negative results.
Service revenues from operations in Spain, Czech Republic
and Ireland plunged massively due to low voice and data revenues.
In America, AT&T and Verizon have been observing
significant growth due to increasing wireless subscribers in the country. Both
telcos are in process of deploying LTE networks across the nation to increase
their subscriber base.
AT&T has posted marginal growth for the second
quarter of FY12. The company posted operating revenue of $31.57 billion
for Q2 FY12, up 0.3 percent, as compared to $31.47 for the year-earlier
quarter. (Read This: AT&T revenue up 0.3% at $31.57 billion for Q2 FY12)
AT&T has seen sound growth in its service revenues,
mainly driven by data services. However, the company’s voice revenue declined
marginally during the quarter.
On the other hand, Verizon Wireless posted strong results
for the wireless segment, augmented by smartphone growth in the country.
Wireline segment, however, declined over Q2 2011. The company added new
smartphone to its portfolio in the quarter along with innovative Share
Everything” plan.
Verizon posted revenue of $28.6 billion for the second
quarter of 2012, up 3.7 percent compared with second-quarter 2011.
With increasing smartphone penetration substantiated by
surging LTE networks, Verizon wireless is poised for better results in the
upcoming quarters.
Danish Khan
[email protected]
