Headline July 31, 2014

''' THE MOBILE-PHO​NE 

AND THE GLOBAL TURNTABLE '''

At a lunchtime in a company restaurant in Shenzhen, young engineers and programmers lounge over plates of grilled salmon, tap on their smartphones and chat in several languages.

Like their counterparts in Silicon Valley and Bangalore, these ambitious Chinese 20-somethings, with degrees from top universities, are trying to build lucrative careers at one of their nation's biggest private companies:

The Telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies.

Largely unknown to U.S. consumers,  Huawei not too long ago was barely known to the Chinese. But the Telecommunications behemoth is the chief rival to Sweden's Ericsson for top share in the global market for telecom infrastructure:

''The plumbing for the world's mobile-phone networks''.

Huawei, with  $35.4 billion in sales last year,  likes to brag that a third of the world's population is hooked up to networks featuring its gear.

Huawei is also the world's third largest  smartphone company, behind Samsung and Apple. 

Among network operators, the lines are also tidier, at least in America, where Verizon and AT&T dominate.

Though mergers may make the smaller fry stronger.

Verizon has got what it sought for years: full control of its juiciest asset, which has revenues of $76 billion a year- much more than its fixed-line business  -and accounts for almost all of its operating profit.

Though it must service and repay the debt it will raise to buy Vodafone, it will no longer have to earmark almost half of its earnings for its British shareholder.

Since January 2012 it has paid Vodafone more than $11 billion in dividends. It will be better placed to sell combined broadband and mobile deals, as well as services, over its networks

Vodafone itself will have plenty of money to spend, even after passing $84 billion to its shareholders : ($23.9 billion in cash, plus all the shares in Verizon).

It plans to invest an extra  €6billion ($9.4 billion) on, among other things,  4G networks,  in which Europe lags far behind America.

By 2017, it says,  90% of the five countries it serves will be covered by 4G. Faster networks should help it attract and keep customers   -and to charge them more, as Verizon and AT&T are already doing in America.

Vodafone will also have the means to buy others. Recently it bought Kabel Deutschland, Germany's biggest cable television company., for €7.7 billion.

It may want to spread itself beyond mobile in other countries, such as Spain and Italy, to battle broadband and cable companies that are treading on its turf by offering cheap mobile deals:

As part of multi-service-service bundles. Vodafone might even be bought itself:

AT&T has had its eye on Europe and would find buying Vodafone less complicated now it is no longer mixed up with Verizon.

Other operators are doing their bit to consolidate Europe's fragmented markets. In June last year, Telefonica of Spain sold its business in Ireland to Three, owned by Hutchison Whampoa of Hong kong.

Then a month later, it agreed to buy  e-Plus, the German arm of KPN, a Dutch operator.

Regulators are joining in too. On September 11, 2013,  Neelie Kroes, the European union's Digital commissioner, was expected to publish proposals that may encourage cross border competition and alliances.

That has been a big deal for telecom deals. But the world is all reset for more and more to come.

Trojans and horses are ready. And out there are companies that don't publish annual reports or employ p.r. consultants. These companies are the ones where:

The future of Telecom and mobile phone is more than likely to surface.

With respectful dedication to all the Telecommunications companies, Mobile Network operators, and mobile-phone manufacturers of the world. See Ya all Sirs, on

!WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

"' Reshaping Telecoms "'

Good night and God bless!

SAM Daily Times - The Voice of the Voiceless