Category: Mobile

Jonathan Michaeli wrote:

Heads up, stodgy bankers and business road warriors: in case you haven’t noticed the blatant signs over the past 12 months or so, your trusty BlackBerry is no longer cool. Yeah, I know you think that because you recently traded in your old-school model with scroll wheel for the sleek black Tour or Bold 2, you’re on top of the latest trends. Sorry to burst your bubble, but your BlackBerry is the equivalent of a Motorola RAZR in late 2007.

I’m almost ashamed to write about it, being a closet BlackBerry user who’s anxiously awaiting the day I am eligible for an upgrade. That puts me squarely within the ultra un-hip “late majority” consumer segment. The only way I can muster the courage to use my BlackBerry in public is that the choice becomes less clear with each passing day which device should be my next. Today if I buy an iPhone 3GS (still my favorite from a pure hardware standpoint), I’m stuck with AT&T, best known for dropped calls and clogged data pipes. Not to be ignored are the host of new Android-based devices that have started coming online. So, I’m waiting to see how things shake out over the next few months, and whether a clear winner emerges. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So you’re not convinced you, too, are behind the times and need some proof. Here goes:

It’s an app world—There’s no denying we are in the beginning of a mobile and social revolution. Whether your goal is to stay plugged into pop culture or keep your business skills honed, you had better embrace this brave new world or risk being left behind. Mobile apps have become an integral part of our culture, and almost all companies—from mobile pure plays and social media upstarts to large e-tailers starting to execute a mobile strategy—build for the iPhone first. That has translated to 100,000 apps in the iTunes store and over 2 billion total downloads as of November 2009, compared to just 5,000 applications in BlackBerry App World.

Wired vs. wireless—If your employer doesn’t “sponsor” your BlackBerry (if you work for a small company this may also apply to you), you likely connect to a BIS server to receive e-mail and connect to the Internet. That means keeping your schedule and contacts up to date between your BlackBerry and computer requires syncing the two via BlackBerry Desktop software, which despite having reached v5.x, constantly requires removal and reinstallation. But I digress. The main point is that like the RAZR, USB is so 2007. Apple has wireless syncing and backup options for all iPhone users. And, as industry experts expected, Apple is making inroads in the enterprise market. After all, if the necessary security measures are in place, IT managers will simply strive to meet the needs and wants of their customers (i.e. company employees).

Brand perception—In late December, the BlackBerry e-mail network suffered two outages over a two-week period. RIM’s service disruption was an aberration, but users were outraged and analysts criticized the company for not having adequate server backup measures. Following the outages, BlackBerry’s Buzz score fell to +28 (positive brand perception scores range from +1 to +100), a number I’d classify as mildly positive. Contrast RIM’s normally reliable service with that of the iPhone; especially in urban areas people are plagued with dropped calls and poor bandwidth on a daily basis. You could argue AT&T’s network, and not the iPhone itself, is largely to blame. But at the end of the day, you’d expect people to …Next Page »

Comments (4) | Reprints | Share:  

 
 
 

Last year, Foursquare was called the break-out mobile app of the conference by more than one tech journalist.

This year, a new contender has appeared – Austin’s native Gowalla. And Brightkite is still hanging on to the LBS community,

if only by a thread of loyal users – but they still offer more features than some of their better-known competitors.

Which do you use now? And when your attention is at a premium during one of the year’s most popular geek conferences, which app or apps will you use to collect badges, connect with friends, and find out where the party really is?

Sponsor

Gowalla’s main weakness might be that they haven’t yet developed an Android or Blackberry application. WordPress Bible author Aaron Brazell noted that while many see the iPhone as the “Jesus phone,” that doesn’t change the fact that “any company who has a business model built around… iPhone is nucking futs.”

While many of us use the mobile version of the site and patiently wait for a native app for non-iPhone devices, Foursquare’s been our go-to check-in service for quite some time. And their response to us on Twitter suggests they may see themselves as a comfortable incumbent at this point.

Both of the services we’ve mentioned also have special, built-in incentives for users at SXSW. Gowalla in particular has announced an interesting promotion. For their flagship “Tiki Room” event, the app will “be scattering hundreds of Tiki Room Digital VIP Passes around downtown Austin. The only way to get yours is to check in with Gowalla at other Austin venues and SXSW events.”

Last year, Foursquare also had special badges for SXSW, such as “Panel Nerd”, “Karaoke RV” and “Porky” (for BBQ lovers, in particular). They even made a custom badge for attendees of Digg’s party and Diggnation live show.

And while Brightkite may not have the game mechanics and rewards of other apps, it does give us the ability to upload photos in addition to text when checking into various locations – a tool we’ve found very handy when screening new venues for ambience.

So, which app or apps will you be using during SXSW? Vote in the poll, and let us know the “why” of your choice in the comments.

Discuss

McLean, Va-based Mobile Posse, a participant in the mobile advertising space since 2006, has raised an additional $2.5 million from existing investors. Release.

In this case, Mobile Posse serves information, like weather and local gas prices to a phone’s idle screen when consumers opt-in for the service. In addition to content, local and national ads are served, including coupons and other offers. The company said the funding will support continued growth and ongoing business operations. So far, the company has launched with Verizon Wireless, MetroPCS and Leap Wireless, and said its platform reaches two million consumers a month, representing a 20-fold increase in 14 months.

As of Dec. 2007, Mobile Posse had raised a total of $11.5 million from Softbank Capital, Court Square Ventures, Columbia Capital, and individual investors.

Here’s a refreshing take on location-based services: It’s not an app and users don’t have to manually check-in when they’ve arrived at a destination.

Today, Placecast is launching a new advertising-based service called ShopAlerts, which lets consumers sign-up for offers from some of their favorite stores or restaurants when they’re in geographic range of the location. The service goes live today starting with three retailers: SONIC, REI and American Eagle Outfitters.

In a way, this brings to life the well-fabled use-case scenario in mobile, where you are walking by a Starbucks and you receive a coupon by text message for a $1 off a latte. It’s just taken about five years to get there.

Placecast is developed and owned by 1020, an advertising firm that was founded in 2005 and is funded by Voyager Capital and Onset Ventures.

ShopAlerts works like this: Consumers can sign-up for specific brands at the store, online, via text-message, mobile website, or social networks. Once activated, consumers automatically receive alerts when they are near a location that they are interested in or when the brand is offering sales and specials. Because everything is delivered by text message, ShopAlerts works on any phone—not just smartphones.

ShopAlerts has been tested in a pilot since September 2009 with retailers including SONIC, American Eagle Outfitters and REI. In a survey, 79 percent of respondents said it increased their likelihood to visit a store; 65 percent said they made a purchase as a result of a ShopAlerts message; and 73 percent of participants would definitely or probably use the service in the future.

In a NYTimes story, Placecast detailed a trial with North Face. The outdoor retailer created 1,000 half-mile wide geo-fences in and around New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston in which messages to users would be triggered. North Face could tailor its messages based on the immediate weather outside. “We like things that people opt in to and that aren’t going to be perceived as being intrusive, where we’re bringing something to the table,” sais Aaron Carpenter, North Face’s VP of marketing.

As more people pick up smartphones and shell out for mobile data plans, carriers, application developers and phone manufactures need to keep one thing in mind: Speed matters. Even if it’s mobile, a connection to the web still needs to feel like broadband. Otherwise, people aren’t going to use their phones as often, or for as long. But speed is a double-edged sword because as newer, faster networks are deployed, the data tsunami already swamping carriers grows taller.

At a GigaOM  Bunker Session (GigaOM Pro, sub. req’d) in our offices on Wednesday, Artur Bergman, VP of engineering and operations at Wikia, said that folks visiting the site from an iPhone using slower 3G networks spend about four minutes there vs. the five to five-and-a-half minutes spent by iPod touch users coming in with (generally) faster Wi-Fi connections — a difference of as much as 38 percent.

Slow load times are also why I plan to dump my BlackBerry the second the Nexus One comes out on Verizon. I don’t even try to load web pages on that thing anymore, as I don’t have time to wait. I’d rather turn on my Mi-Fi and use my iPod touch. Yup, I carry three devices with me to sate my web addiction and make phone calls.

I’m apparently not the only one who’s impatient. Data from AdMob shows that folks using an iPod touch and Wi-Fi to connect to the web spend 100 minutes a day on their devices using apps, while those using 3G on the iPhone spend just 79 minutes. For other 3G handsets, that number rises to 80 minutes for Android phone users and 87 minutes for those on Palm devices.

I’m inferring from that data, my own experience and Bergman’s comments that if it ain’t fast, then users go home. The speed of a mobile application can be a result of the connection, the phone hardware and the application’s design (which can also involve the web browser instead of an app). Which is why faster processors for handsets and new WiMAX and LTE networks will not only appease current web users with a need for speed, but will drive demand ever higher.

Image courtesy of Flickr user zenera

When fan-bois start making rap videos (however amateurish) about something, you know it is hot. Badges Like Us, a new video by Matt Newberg and Boris Silver, about Foursquare, the New York-based start-up shows why it is on its way to becoming a mobile phenomenon. I continue to be a big fan of the service, but this video takes fandom to a different level. No, it isn’t going to win an MTV Music award, but if you like Foursquare, this will be a welcome fun break on this sluggish Friday.

At least three reports were distributed today by companies that use internal data to make sweeping statements about the state of the industry. While the data can often be influenced by the company’s strengths, the reports can typically be useful for gleaning some relevant information on where the trends are heading. Here are those three reports:

—Distimo: This report looks at games being sold on Windows, BlackBerry, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Android stores. It found that in January on average, the most expensive games are found on Windows and Blackberry ($4.91 and $4.60, respectively). Meanwhile, games published in the role-playing category on the iPhone are most expensive at $7.96 a game. Most other iPhone game categories averaged between $1.30 and $2.60. Full report here.

—AdMob: : Instead of analyzing its internal ad network for trends, AdMob conducted a survey in January. Of the 963 respondents, it found that Android and iPhone users downloaded a similar number of apps and spent a similar amount of time using the apps—which is a bit different than the perception that Android trails the iPhone. However, iPod touch users downloaded 37 percent more than both—an average of 12 apps a month. Full report.

—Opera: Mobile browser-maker Opera says Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has a commanding lead in mobile Web search in the U.S. Accounting for more than 9 percent of all page views on the mobile Web, Google outpaces Yahoo! (NSDQ: YHOO) with 4.3 percent. Bing hardly registers at .03 percent of all page views. Full report.

If Palm hopes to turn its business around, it needs better hardware and marketing, not the 200 “brand ambassadors” currently training Verizon Wireless employees mentioned in a please-don’t-panic memo by Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein to employees. Unschooled Verizon staffers are the least of the manufacturer’s problems.

The memo, which was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal, follows the company’s announcement yesterday that consumer uptake of its webOS handsets had been slower than expected, leading to weak orders from carriers. Rubinstein told employees Verizon had “recommitted” to help boost sales of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, which the nation’s largest carrier launched last month. Rubinstein wrote:

“Dave Whalen and I just returned from a very successful meeting with Verizon Wireless, where they acknowledged that their execution of our launch was below expectations and recommitted to working with us to improve sales. To accelerate sales, we initiated Project JumpStart nearly three weeks ago. Since then, nearly two hundred Palm Brand Ambassadors, supplemented by Palm employees from Sunnyvale, have been training Verizon sales reps across the U.S. on our products.”

Rubinstein’s note also laughably cited “a growing number of Palm ads on billboards, bus shelters, buses, and subway stations.” That kind of marketing pales compared to Apple’s masterful TV commercials for its iPhone and the $100 million ad campaign for the Droid from Motorola and Verizon.

Such big-budget promotions are crucial in the superphone era, where a wide array of high-tech handsets can be had on the cheap. More importantly, though, it’s also becoming increasingly clear that consumers aren’t thrilled with either the Pre or the Pixi. So if Palm is going to get back in the game — a prospect that’s becoming less likely by the day — it will need to develop a gotta-have device and then back it with some serious marketing muscle.

Related content from GigOM Pro (sub req’d):

Marketing Handsets in the Superphone Era

Image courtesy of Flickr user usembassylondon.

Earlier this week, Juniper Research published a report which said the market for location-based services (think mobile check-in games like Foursquare, social networks like Loopt, location-enabled apps like Google Maps, etc.) will bring in revenues of more than $12.7 billion by 2014. Spurring this growth are a number of factors, including the increased number of App Stores, handset improvements, access to high-speed mobile Internet and improvements to positioning technology.

While it’s clear that location-based services are on the move, pinpointing a dollar amount to their market is a trickier subject. Has Juniper overestimated? U.K.-based consultancy Broadsight thinks so. “These numbers are way overstated,” says firm co-founder Alan Patrick, who concludes that’s it’s far too early to tell the market’s true size at this time.

Sponsor

An Argument Against LBS’s $13 Billion Market Forecast

Presenting at a local event for digitally-minded professionals, Patrick’s talk offered a dose of realism to what has been, until now, a well-hyped – perhaps overly hyped – technology trend. He claims that location-based services (“LBS”) is one of those cyclical hypes that comes around every ten years or so. “Like all overhyped areas, it comes complete with way overoptimistic market projections,” notes Patrick on the company blog.

Although he doesn’t call out analyst firm Juniper by name, he says that “$13 billion are the sorts of numbers being thrown around.” (Juniper predicts $12.7 billion). So how much does Patrick think the market’s worth? It’s too early to tell, he says.

Instead of focusing on what has influenced the market to grow thus far, Patrick examines the two determining factors that will impact the actual revenues LBS is able to generate: penetration and Average Revenue per User.

Penetration of the LBS market can vary widely including everything from smartphone users all the way to consumer devices like cars and even low-cost “Internet of Things” devices. The “Internet of Things” refers to real-world objects getting connected to the web. It can also include other web-connected devices like sensors or those incorporating RFID technology. The point Patrick was making is that the actual market value will be greatly influenced by how many devices end up web-connected and using LBS over the next few years. If, however, only smartphone users are taking advantage of LBS, then the market retains only niche value.

The second determinant is the Average Revenue per User. This also can vary between “free” – as when location services are given away as a part of something else – and those that are “paid for” outright. Users could “pay for” services either via subscription payments, software downloads or ad funding, for example.

Based on these determining factors, the actual market value for LBS, as you can see, may vary widely. Assigning it the $13 billion price tag is “of the ‘Panglos’ school of forecasting,” he says. That is, “assuming the best of all possible outcomes in the best of all possible worlds.”

Privacy Issues: A Limiting Factor to LBS Growth?

Patrick also brings up the privacy issues inherent in using the types of apps that broadcast your location, an issue we discussed ourselves just last week. At that time, the potential dangers in location broadcasting were brought to the forefront of our minds when the new site PleaseRobMe launched, displaying real-time updates from members of mobile social network Foursquare who broadcast their check-ins on Twitter. Although the site’s goal was simply to raise awareness of the issue, the news quickly spread until even local TV anchors were discussing it on the nightly news.

Even among tech bloggers such as ourselves, there is disagreement as to whether or not these services represent a true danger. A discussion in our writers’ chat room the other day had one writer positioning the services as tools for stalking, saying these types of apps “make it a heck of a lot easier for people” to do so. Meanwhile, another writer argued “well, having a knife around makes it easier to cut yourself, too.” (Names withheld to protect the innocent!)

The truth is, mainstream users will likely not jump on the LBS social bandwagon right away – unless Facebook launches something, that is. However, there’s a reason they haven’t done this yet – outside of the tech bubble, a good bit of the population is fairly concerned with protecting their privacy. You can argue that their fears come from an inherent lack of understanding about the realities of how LBS is used, but that won’t necessarily convince them. Just like anything, true growth and acceptance will take time. And fears like these aren’t exactly the sort that will go away over the next four years.

All that being said, while Patrick presents his ideas as “rational prognosis” regarding this industry, it’s possible that he’s being a little too down on the market’s potential. Maybe it won’t reach $13 billion, maybe it will…but like he said, it’s too soon to know.

Discuss

Smartphones could be the most important diagnostic tool of this century as part of a revolution in digital wireless medical devices, according to Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist working at The Scripps Research Institute, speaking at the TedMed conference last year. In a video released earlier this week, Topol shows off patches communicating with his smartphone to continuously monitor his vital signs.

I spoke briefly about this intersection of medicine and technology with Dr. Mohit Kaushal, director of health care for the FCC’s Broadband Strategy Initiative, earlier this week, who said that the FCC and the FDA were trying to establish rules to approve regulations that would allow diagnostics to move to smartphones. And who knows, maybe if the smartphone becomes useful for medical monitoring, perhaps those costly data plans will be reimbursed by insurance providers.

Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) manages to get through its 72-page 2009 annual report without making any reference to iPhone, on which its O2 lost UK exclusivity last year – but the carrier also has Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre and other touchscreens, and credits “smartphones” generally with growing its subscriber count by 5.1 percent…

Britain’s leading network slimmed churn to just 2.6 percent and found 15.4 percent more voice traffic, but EC-enforced lower call prices meant 8.7 percent less voice call revenue and total average customer revenue is down 4.4 percent. O2 UK more than doubled its broadband lines to 591,514.

O2 UK clocked 3.5 percent more revenue (€6.5 billion) and 2.3 percent more operating income before amortisation and depreciation (€1.68 billion), in a year when other operators were hard-pressed.

Across the group, Telefonica annual net profit rose 2.4 percent to €7.77 billion on 0.3 percent better revenue.

Results | Release | Webcast

Once upon a time, buying cellphones was easy. You’d go for the cheaper deal and leave it at that. But what about when you’re faced with the choice of paying more now or more over time? Which do you chose?

The NY Times has an interesting example of this dilemma:

Let’s say that you buy a MyTouch 3G, one of T-Mobile’s most popular smartphones, for $400, and sign up for its unlimited voice, text and data plan for $60 a month. The total cost of the phone over two years would be $1,840.

If, instead, you buy the phone subsidized by T-Mobile for $150, that same unlimited plan will cost $80 monthly – which is still the best deal among the major carriers, by the way – bringing your two-year total to $2,070.

So what would you choose?

Picture of Cellphone Matryoshka Doll

T-Mobile USA 2009 revenue dropped by 1.6 percent due to lower roaming costs, but aggressive network upgrades are beginning to juice the carrier as subscribers opt for data-powered handsets.

Total revenues were $5.41 billion in Q4, down from $5.72 billion in the year-ago period, but up compared to the third quarter when it reported $5.38 billion. German parent Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) said the currency-converted income it draws form the carrier grew 3.4 percent to €15.5 billion after it doubled its 3G reach to a nationwide 205 million people and increased its download speeds from 3.6Mbps to 7.2Mbps.

In its annual earnings published Thursday, DT said the upgrade has driven mobile data revenue, led by its flagship Android handsets. T-Mobile USA aims to make the network a 2010 centerpiece, including plans to increase 30 geographic areas to speeds of up to 21Mbps.

But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. “Without doubt, business in the United Sates has been difficult,” the annual report acknowledges, saying that its US market share declined slightly because AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon signed more customers and because they enjoy advantages like iPhone and greater scale.

T-Mobile USA added a million customers to finish the year with 33.8 million, but churn upped from 2.9 to 3.2 percent due to “handset innovation and market launches by regional unlimited wireless carriers.” T-Mobile USA reported $1.38 billion in OIBDA in Q4, down from $1.57 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008; OIBDA margin of 30% in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 32% in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Group-wide Deutsche Telekom revenue jumped 4.8 percent to €64.6 billion because it fully accounted for its Greek subsidiary OTE for the first time. But net profit collapsed 76.2 percent to €400,000, in part because of impairments like that UK write-off.

By the year’s end, T-Mobile Deutschland had sold 1.5 million iPhones since getting Apple’s carriage in June 2009. And Telekom is looking farther ahead, too. “By 2015, we expect a typical mobile customer to require a data volume of around 14 gigabytes a month. In 2007, it was only a few megabytes,” it says in its annual report.

Wade Roush wrote:

Xconomy’s next big event, Mobile Madness: The New Future of Computing, is coming up fast—it’s on March 9 at Microsoft’s New England R&D Center in Cambridge.

Once again, the tech community has come out in force to support our event, and I have an amazing lineup of speakers to tell you about, as well as some new and unique segments like the “Mobile Smackdown.” More on all that in a moment.

At a high level, the point of this Xconomy forum is to explore the new reality that mobile technology is one of the central arenas, if not the central arena, for innovation in both consumer and business computing. More and more of the applications and services that companies want to offer to consumers and enterprises must be accessible from both mobile and desktop platforms. Meanwhile, mobile-only software and content is an exploding business all on its own. All of that creates enormous opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship. Attendees will hear about the biggest opportunities and pitfalls in the mobile business as perceived by leaders from a range of successful local companies.

The Mobile Madness forum is one of the highlights of Mass Mobile Month, a celebration of mobile innovation throughout New England in March 2010. We encourage you to investigate and attend the many of the Boston-area mobile technology events listed at MassMobileMonth.com. And if you’re a mobile industry insider or fan and you’re planning to attend Mobile Madness or any of the month’s other events, we’d love to get your help promoting the initiative through social media; the Twitter hash tag for Mobile Madness is #xmobmad and the tag for Mass Mobile Month is #massmobmonth.

Who else will be at Mobile Madness? As always, our audience will consist of a rich mix of entrepreneurs, executives, developers, investors, and service providers from around New England. The last time we held a mobile event in the Microsoft space, in April 2009, we had a standing-room-only crowd of 225. We expect to sell out again this year, so register now.

We’re packing incredible variety into this five-hour event. Headlining the afternoon are six keynote speakers from leading global, national, and regional organizations. (The full agenda is online here.) First off we’ve got Jhonatan Rotberg, executive director of the MIT-based Next Billion Network, who will talk about the role mobile technology can play in solving social and economic challenges in the developing world. Then Kate Imbach, a key organizer at Mobile Monday Boston and vice president of marketing from Boston’s Skyhook Wireless, will walk us through the latest facts and figures on venture investment in the mobile technology sphere in New England.

Later in the program we’ll have a sequence of three more keynote talks from major companies active in the mobile industry. First, we’re delighted to welcome Anthony Kinney, a Windows Phone evangelist at Microsoft, who will talk about Microsoft’s plans for the Windows Phone 7 operating system. We’re also honored to have a team joining us from Cisco Systems, which recently acquired local wireless infrastructure networking company Starent Networks; we’ll be hearing about the company’s plans in the mobile business from …Next Page »

Comments | Reprints | Share:  

 
 
 

Feedly, one of our favorite magazine-style feed readers, is opening the doors today on its “Feedly iPhone protoype 7”. With a name like that, we feel like we’ve just gotten access to the secret microfilm hidden in the false bottom of someone’s penny loafers.

In a blog post today, the company showed off what it’s been working on for the last few months. And from what they’re saying, a live beta version is just around the corner.

Sponsor

The minute-long tour of the still-in-development iPhone app shows off how a user will be able to browse through their Feedly digest of articles, share, recommend and tweet about content, mark articles as read, and navigate between feeds.

According to the blog post, Feedly is going for simplicity in use and design, as well as a multi-platform compatibility. It is soliciting user feedback before releasing a “prototype 8” and potentially a live beta version on March 15, which would, of course, coincide with SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas.

Already, suggestions are coming in on the blog post’s comments, and Feedly CEO Edwin Khodabakchian’s responses are letting us in on a few more details of what to expect, such as a “Save for Later” function, releases for both Android and Palm Pre, and transparent syncing with Feedly Desktop.

Khodabakchian also hints at possibilities for sharing on a number of social networks, including Twitter and Buzz, and possibly more. He says that “our goal is to release the iPhone, Nexus One and Palm Pre at the same time,” and that they “will be offering feedly on iPad as soon as it is available.”

T-Mobile UK lost 16.3 percent of its income through 2009, finishing at €3.39 billion ahead of what parent Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) hopes will be Office of Fair Trading approval for its planned merger with Orange UK.

T-Mobile UK actually ended with 2.4 percent more customers (17.2 million) – but they were mostly prepay customers, and not the higher-value contract subscribers. DT wrote off €1.8 billion from T-Mobile UK in Q109 due to competition and EC-enforced roaming price reductions.

Deutsche Telekom is keen to get the merger done, creating the UK’s leading mobile carrier with 32.7 million customers. It’s pledging enhanced network quality, customer service, retail opportunities and innovation as a result – but expect “synergies”, ie. job losses especially in call centres, some of which T-Mobile UK already outsourced last year.

Group-wide Deutsche Telekom revenue jumped 4.8 percent to €64.6 billion because it fully accounted for its Greek subsidiary OTE for the first time. But net profit collapsed 76.2 percent to €400,000, in part because of impairments like that UK write-off.

By the year’s end, T-Mobile Deutschland had sold 1.5 million iPhones since getting Apple’s carriage in June 2009. And Telekom is looking farther ahead, too. “By 2015, we expect a typical mobile customer to require a data volume of around 14 gigabytes a month. In 2007, it was only a few megabytes,” it says in its annual report.

Results