Eurobites: Feature phones on the up as parents wake up to smartphone dangers

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Odido migrates to Ericsson's billing platform; Tele2's Q3; Nokia hooks up with Lenovo to embrace data center AI.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

October 22, 2024

3 Min Read
Children looking at smartphones sitting on the back of a car
(Source: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo)
  • UK converged operator Virgin Media O2 has seen sales of feature phones – devices that focus on calling and texting that usually can't connect to the Internet – double year-over-year as parents wake up to the danger smartphones present to their kids. The operator said there was a significant spike in September, as parents and children prepared for the return to school after the long summer break. Nearly a quarter of UK five-to-seven-year-olds now have their own smartphone, according to Ofcom research.

  • Dutch operator Odido has migrated its 5 million mobile customers onto Ericsson's AWS-hosted billing platform over a weekend in August, with the help of systems integrator Wipro. Ericsson says the shift allows Odido to offer innovative 5G services, including the Klik&Klaar fixed wireless access (FWA) variant. Possibly straying into hyperbole, Odidio CEO Søren Abildgaard said: "We've just done a billing migration with 0 faults in it. A billing migration is like an open-heart surgery, on a marathon runner, while they run. And we managed to do that."

  • In what is current CEO Kjell Johnsen's final set of earnings before he steps down next month after four years in the job, Nordic operator Tele2 has reported third-quarter EBITDAal (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, after leases) up 2% year-over-year in organic terms, to 2.8 billion Swedish kroner (US$265 million). End-user service revenue rose by 3% in organic terms, to SEK5.5 billion ($522 million). Full year 2024 guidance and mid-term outlook remain unchanged.

  • Nokia has hooked up with Lenovo to develop data center networking and automation offerings to support AI and machine learning, drawing on Lenovo's ThinkSystem "AI-ready" range of servers and storage. What emerges from the collaboration will be jointly marketed to enterprises, telcos and cloud providers.

  • Germany ruled the European roost in terms of patent filings for the telecom industry between 2010-2024, according to a new study from Source Advisors. The study says that Germany filed 4.08% of patents for the telecom industry during the period, compared with the UK on 1.85%, France on 1.62% and Italy on 1.13%. Globally, the US and China are the clear front-runners, with the US on 34.19% and China on 29.99%, their nearest rival being Japan on 8.98%.

  • VEON says it welcomes criticism from one of its major shareholders, Shah Capital, admitting that its current share price "indicates a potential for further improvement." In its letter to the VEON board of directors, Shah Capital bemoaned, among other perceived shortcomings, a lack of shareholder capital return in the form of equity buybacks and a lingering perception of VEON as a "bureaucratic European company with a complicated operating structure and high HQ operating cost."

  • In less awkward news, VEON says it has begun delisting from the Euronext Amsterdam exchange, a move that it believes will help it consolidate the trading of its shares on the Nasdaq in the US as it prepares to move its headquarters from Amsterdam to Dubai.

  • Freshwave, a UK-based infrastructure-as-a-service provider, has appointed Sharon Olive as its first chief commercial officer. Olive has been with Freshwave for more than five years as account director for its mobile network operator business and in the wider telecom industry for 25 years.

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About the Author

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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