8:30 AM Financial results rule today's meze assortment of European telecom news

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

July 23, 2010

2 Min Read
Euronews: July 23

8:30 AM -- Something of a results-fest today in the European telecom news roundup, as Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD), Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), and ST-Ericsson bare their financials, as it were. Oh, and BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA) is up to its old tricks...

  • Vodafone gave some hope to the global mobile community today by announcing that the April-to-June quarter was the first to show "service revenue growth since the global recession impacted." Vodafone noted "improving trends" in all regions. Hurrah! (See Vodafone Reports Q1.)

  • Not such a happy story at Ericsson, where components shortages and supply chain bottlenecks contributed to an 8 percent year-on-year decline in second-quarter group sales. (See Parts Problems Hurt Ericsson's Q2.)

  • It's finger-in-the-dike time at Ericsson's joint venture with STMicroelectronics NV (NYSE: STM), ST-Ericsson, where second-quarter results reveal that revenues continue to decline, but losses, while significant, are at least being stemmed. (See ST-Ericsson Reports Q2.)

  • At its annual meeting yesterday, BT revealed it had asked its auditors to change members of the audit team (from PricewaterhouseCoopers International ) working on its BT Global Services unit after over-optimistic profit assumptions led to a £1.6 billion (US$2.4 billion) writedown, reports The Financial Times. PWC duly obliged...

  • UK regulator Ofcom , however, hasn't been quite so obliging. BT wanted to raise its wholesale prices to help make up for its monster-sized pension shortfall, reports UKPA, but Ofcom is having none of it. (See Euronews: July 14.)

  • Following on from its recent trials, Vodafone Greece has commercially launched its 3G femtocell, the Vodafone Access Gateway. The device, sourced from Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. , is available for €150 ($194) but is discounted for some Vodafone customers. (See Femto Watch: Vodafone Expands Footprint .)

    — Paul Rainford, freelance editor, special to Light Reading

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About the Author(s)

Paul Rainford

Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Paul is based on the Isle of Wight, a rocky outcrop off the English coast that is home only to a colony of technology journalists and several thousand puffins.

He has worked as a writer and copy editor since the age of William Caxton, covering the design industry, D-list celebs, tourism and much, much more.

During the noughties Paul took time out from his page proofs and marker pens to run a small hotel with his other half in the wilds of Exmoor. There he developed a range of skills including carrying cooked breakfasts, lying to unwanted guests and stopping leaks with old towels.

Now back, slightly befuddled, in the world of online journalism, Paul is thoroughly engaged with the modern world, regularly firing up his VHS video recorder and accidentally sending text messages to strangers using a chipped Nokia feature phone.

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