RAN UPdate

• There were more than 3 billion mobile subscribers worldwide at the end of 2007; 45% of those are from the Asia Pacific.
• Ericsson retains its #1 position for overall RAN equipment revenue market share with 30%, ahead of Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel.
• Worldwide mobile core network revenue will grow in the double digits annually through 2011, driven by increasing mobile Internet traffic and the iPhone.
• Sales of soft mobile switching centers, which provide call control, signaling and intelligence for mobile networks, will grow in the double digits annually through 2011.
• Sales of home location register (HLR) equipment were up 28% in Q4 2007 from Q3.

  —Source: Infonetics 

Get Smart

Handango found that entertainment content was the leading sales category for smartphones in its 2007 Yearend Yardstick, a global trend report about the smartphone content industry.

In 2007, entertainment content was the top-selling category with 17% of total sales. Business and professional content dropped from first place at 18% in 2006, to second place at 16% of total sales

in 2007, suggesting that smartphone owners are using their devices for work and play. Other leading categories in 2007 were productivity apps, such as address book and calendar, and games, at third and fourth place, respectively.

All for HSPA

Seven of eight commercial 3G/WCDMA operators have launched HSPA, according to the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA). 211 WCDMA operators have launched commercial services in 91 countries, of which 185 operators (87.6%) also have deployed High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA).

Evolution of HSDPA Data Speeds

Source: GSA

HSDPA services are now commercially available in 80 countries. There are 103 commercial HSDPA operators in Europe, 36 in APAC, 24 in the Middle East and Africa region and 22 in the Americas. 80 HSDPA operators commercially launched services during 2007, representing growth of 80%.

WCDMA is in use by more than 72% of commercial 3G operators worldwide. HSDPA is the first evolution of WCDMA.

As for network data speeds enabled by HSDPA, 62% of those deployed support downlink data speeds of 3.6 Mbps peak or higher, including 38 operators (over 20%) that have launched 7.2 Mbps peak or higher.

An evolution also is taking place in uplink data speeds. High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) services have been launched by 34 operators in 26 countries, with 24 additional deployments ongoing.

Commercial HSPA Operators By Region

Source: GSA

BlackBerry Apps Triple

More than 11,000 new mobile apps for the BlackBerry were added to the Handango network. In fact, 135% more BlackBerry apps were added in 2007 than in 2006.

The Blackberry Pearl and Motorola Q smartphones targeted to consumers for both work and play were among the top devices for content downloads in 2007, both by revenue and number of units sold.  

Top 10 Best-Selling BlackBerry Apps 

1. Ringtone Megaplex (ringtone library)

2. Sudoku (puzzle game)

3. Color Your Trackball (trackball customizer)

4. IM+ (instant messenger)

5. Ascendo DataVault (password manager)

6. WorldMate Live Gold Membership (travel assistant)

7. Aces Texas Hold’Em – No Limit (poker game)

8. IM+ for Skype (instant messenger)

9. SplashID for BlackBerry (information security)

10. Crackberry Ringtones Deluxe (ringtone library)

Top 10 Best-Selling Windows Mobile Apps 

1. Ringtone Megaplex (ringtone library)

2. SBSH Façade (home screen plug-in)

3. MobiTV (streaming television)

4. HandiTV (streaming television)

5. Fizz Weather (weather monitor)

6. SmartphoneNotes (note manager)

7. Agendus Standard Edition (calendar manager)

8. Agenda One (calendar manager)

9. PocketStreamer (streaming media)

10. IM+ (instant messenger)

GO FIGURE

$99

Unlimited calling plan offer per month from Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile USA. T-Mobile USA included unlimited text, MMS and IM for that price. Sprint followed suit with unlimited voice, Web surfing and texting for $99/month.

>32M

Number of page impressions that AccuWeather.com’s mobile Website chalked up in February. This beat the previous month’s record-breaker of 31,643,961 page impressions. The mobile site also set a new record for daily impressions with 1,792,492 on Feb. 12, beating the previous record of 1,527,102 set in the same month on Feb. 5.

31

Number of venture capital (VC) financings in wireless companies during February, according to Rutberg & Company. VCs spent more than $515 million on those companies.

$300M

The largest VC investment in February was in TerreStar, a company that provides technology to develop a 4G integrated mobile satellite and terrestrial communications network, according to Rutberg & Company.