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Telecom industry faces moment of truth
Fri Feb 13, 2009 4:46am EST
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By Georgina Prodhan
LONDON (Reuters) - The world's mobile telecom industry will gather in the Spanish city of Barcelona next week, hoping to find ways to outwit the downturn, powerful new rivals and software developers threatening to steal their thunder.
Mobile World Congress, the phone industry's biggest annual gathering, comes on the heels of a season of miserable 2008 results reports dominated by lowered profit outlooks, deep job cuts and slashed capital spending.
The mobile phone sector is grappling with formidable new rivals from the computer industry and web such as Google and Apple who have been faster to realize the potential of the convergence of phone and Internet features.
This year, a host of PC makers will join the fray.
Taiwanese notebook manufacturers Acer and netbook pioneer Asustek are poised to debut new smartphones, and speculation is rife that PC maker Dell is also looking to revamp itself as a phone maker.
Bengt Nordstrom of telecoms management consulting firm Northstream says notebook makers have developed relationships with operators as mobile broadband has become a reality, easing the next step to marketing their own phones.
"Dell, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Acer -- they're very well-connected. Laptops have become an integral part of the mobile broadband market," he says. "And those companies are very good at logistics, streaming production."
The mobile communications industry, formerly controlled by huge, integrated former state monopolies, has fragmented so that hardware, software and services can now easily be provided by different suppliers, lowering barriers to entry.
Operating systems are now freely available from the likes of Google or the Nokia-controlled Symbian Foundation. Independent suppliers can market applications for music, photos or map navigation without network operator approval.
HARD SQUEEZE
Handset makers are being squeezed the hardest.
Although mobile phones are more popular than any other consumer gadget in history, the number of phones sold is set to fall this year for the first time since 2001.
Analysts expect 11 percent fewer handsets will be sold this year than last. Their estimates have been repeatedly cut over the last months and risk further downgrades.
Even the world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, whose dominant market position once made it look untouchable, reported a 15 percent drop in handsets sold last quarter.
To offset crumbling handset margins and sales, Nokia and others have pushed harder to sell services to consumers. Continued...
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