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S. Korea has more mobile phones than people

September 15, 2010

EOUL (AFP) – Gadget-mad South Korea now has more mobile phones than people, with a growing number of users carrying multiple handsets for business purposes, telecoms authorities said on Wednesday.

The Korea Communications Commission said there were 50 million mobile service subscribers in the country as of this month, more than the population of 48.8 million.

“You may say there are 1.2 million people carrying two phones, but excluding children and those with no phones, the number of multiple-phone owners could be far higher,” Choi Seong-Ho, the commission’s communication service policy director, told AFP.

Now mobile phones are not simply a tool to make calls and send text messages but an essential part of everyday life encompassing business, shopping and Internet searches, he said.
South Korea launched its first mobile phone service in 1984 and the number of subscribers grew exponentially through the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The agency also said there are 3.67 million smartphone users in the country, 7.4 percent of the total.

Statistics Korea estimates the 2009 population at 49.30 million — still fewer than the number of mobile phones.

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Walmart To Launch Self Branded Mobile Phones

September 14, 2010

The online shopping giant Wallmart is now going wireless with its new range of cell phones offered under chain’s own branding. The self-branded wireless service titled Walmart Family Mobile has been scheduled to launch starting next week in most of its stores across the nation.

Here’s the complete mouth watering deal. Walmart Family Mobile will offer unlimited calling and texting for $45 per month for the first line, and an additional $25 for a second.  While there are no contract agreements associated with the plan, data usage can be pre-purchased at the rate of $40 per gigabyte with unused megabytes carried over from month to month. The service will run on T-Mobile USA’s network. Read more

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Nokia Beats Apple and Android In Shipment of Smartphones

September 14, 2010

Nokia’s annual convention, the Nokia World 2010 is on a full swing today in London, with the Finnish mobile giant unwrapping surprises from its goodie bag. Amongst all the other announcements from new phones to Ovi Store updates, Angry Birds and new Nokia browser, the company also startled the audience by revealing some interesting shipment statistics for its smartphones, across the globe.

So all those who thought Nokia  had lost the smartphone game and needed to overhaul its product lineup, might want to think again. According to the company, Nokia moves around 260,000 smartphones a day, pretty ahead of the two competitors it has always been accused of losing to. If some recent stats are to be believed, Apple ships somewhere around 80,000 iPhones per day, and Android activate 200,000 devices per day.

So now you can imagine Nokia grinning at your face for talking foul about it.

Besides, another interesting announcement from the stage comes about the launch of new C6 and C7 Symbian^3 handsets by the company.

Nokia C6 features an 8 megapixel camera and a 3.2-inch AMOLED screen with all-new ClearBlack Display (CBD) technology and has been priced at $334. Nokia C7 on the other hand gets a 3.5-inch (also AMOLED), more memory and a stainless steel body, which  Anssi Vanjoki touts as the sleekest device in the world. The model has been priced at $430. Both handsets are capable of rec0rding pixel-heavy 720p video .

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Mobile data traffic now surpasses voice

September 8, 2010

It’s now officially confirmed: mobile data traffic has surpassed voice and it will continue to grow in the same fashion for many more years to come, according to The Yankee Group.

As a consequence, wireless operators need to find new ways to not only support this new category of important traffic, but they also need to find new methods to profit from it as well. And to that end, content delivery platforms (CDP) can help them achieve their goals.

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Posted by admin · Filed Under Industry