Telecom Argentina (TEO) reported third-quarter earnings per ADS of 40 cents, falling short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 52 cents. However, reported net income from continuing operations grew 39% year over year to P$303 million (US$79 million), boosted by healthy growth from broadband and mobile segments.   Consolidated revenues increased 13% year over year to P$3.1 billion (US$803 million) as the company’s cellular business grew 13% while broadband business (Arnet) posted healthier annualized growth of 54%. Broadband Internet revenue growth was fueled by significant expansion of broadband service, commercial promotions, innovation of service portfolio and improved network coverage.   The company’s cellular telephony business achieved respectable growth in the quarter with revenue of P$2.1 billion (US$550 million) accounting for approximately 68% of the consolidated sales. Revenues from data transmission grew 25% year over year to P$70 million (US$18 million). Fixed-line voice service revenues increased 3.1% year over ...

MoneyGram International Inc. (MGI) announced the expansion of MoneyGram Rewards into Canada, a loyalty program that offers members fee discounts, receive notices, and fast and convenient money transfers.  MoneyGram Rewards were expanded earlier this year into Germany, Spain and France. It was first introduced in the U.S. in 2008 and now has more than 3.5 million customers who enjoy the benefits of membership, which include discounted transactions, a personalized card for expediting money transfers, quarterly statements and the ability to manage one’s account and profile online.  Further in September, MoneyGram added a feature to the program that allows members to be notified via SMS text message when their money transfer transaction has been picked up by the receiver.  The expansion of the program is a part of MoneyGram’s growth plans in Canada. In July, the company announced the roll-out of thousands of additional Canada Post ...

VeriSign Inc. (VRSN) recently announced a business relationship with iLoop Mobile to provide a dynamic short message service (SMS) marketing solution for large and small enterprise organizations. The two companies are offering a single solution – VeriSign's mobile aggregation and Mobile Enterprise Services with iLoop Mobile's robust mobile marketing technology platform. The combined solution has been optimized for a variety of different brands and organizations ranging from advertising and direct marketing agencies to media, entertainment, professional sports and Web entities. This solution aims to eliminate complexities of launching mobile campaigns and services, making the launch of mobile initiatives worldwide faster and easier. HP is currently using the integrated offering to power its mobile marketing campaigns and initiatives to its 80 million registered Snapfish users worldwide. The service, available now in select countries, will allow customers to easily navigate the Snapfish Website on their mobile phones and share

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China Unicom (CHU) has announced interim 2009 results with reported net income of RMB6.6 billion (US$970 billion) or RMB0.28 per share, down 42.1% compared to RMB12.1 billion (US$1.8 billion) or RMB0.51 per share reported in the corresponding period a year-ago. This significant year-over-year decline in profitability is due to erosion in fixed-line revenue, higher marketing and capital expenditures associated with deployment and expansion of 3G wireless services, and intense domestic competition. Capital spending for expansion of its 3G network grew 17.1% year over year to RMB10.1 billion (US$1.5 billion) during the first-half of 2009 while associated marketing expenses increased 6.6% to RMB9.7 billion (US$1.4 billion). China Unicom contends with an increasingly competitive domestic wireless market. The second-largest Chinese wireless carrier remains significantly challenged by the aggressive nationwide 3G service roll-out plans of its peers China Mobile (CHL) and China Telecom (CHA). Consolidated revenue ...

A Garmin Ltd. (GRMN) spokesperson announced that the company had selected a carrier for the nuvifone G6, its new smartphone. Although the name of the carrier was not announced, rumor has it that it could be AT&T (T), the second-largest player in the U.S. The product will be manufactured by Taiwanese PC manufacturer Asustuk. Garmin expects the product to generate $100-200 million in revenue this year, which would add an incremental 4% to the top line. This means that Garmin would still be short of the one million unit mark this year. Although the company’s small size and vulnerability in the intensely competitive market could delay initial customer response, Asus is geared to crossing the million unit threshold in 2010. We believe that the success of the product could be tempered by AT&T’s commitment to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, for which it has exclusive distribution ...

Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. (TKC) announced the completion of a trial, called TiklaKazan, using MyScreen Mobile Inc.'s (MYSL) patent-pending mobile advertising solution.

TiklaKazan, MyScreen's technology-based solution, was made available to a select group of Turkcell customers, allowing them to participate in the trial for a period of four weeks in exchange for free airtime. Results of the trial were positive, with 82% of subscribers confirming they would recommend MyScreen to a friend. Subscribers also confirmed that they would prefer to see a full-screen advertisement at the end of the call, as opposed to receiving an SMS or MMS.   MyScreen's mobile advertising solution helps brand advertisers deliver targeted full-screen advertisements to subscribers at the end of every call, based on their demographic and interest profile. In return, subscribers accumulate rewards for every advertisement viewed on their phone, which can be redeemed for free airtime, downloadable content or value-added services

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Nokia Corp. (NOK) recently introduced an innovative wireless financial service called “Nokia Money" to help consumers access basic financial services using their mobile handset.

“Nokia Money" is a 24-hour service that will enable any mobile phone user to transfer money from his bank account to another account dialing the latter’s mobile phone number. This can be done either through SMS or a call. Nokia is likely to launch this service commercially from early 2010 in select European markets.

The major innovation of this service is that it will be available across various wireless networks from any mobile phone and not necessarily a Nokia handset. This user friendly, fully secured digital financial service can be used for remitting money, pay bills for goods and services, utility bills or top-up prepaid connections. Rural consumers, who do not have access to online services, will particularly benefit from this service.

Mobile financial

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China Mobile (CHL) announced interim 2009 results today with reported net income of RMB55.3 billion (US$8.1 billion) or RMB2.72 per share, up 1.4% compared to RMB54.5 billion (US$8 billion) or RMB2.68 per share reported in the corresponding period a year-ago.

This tepid growth reflects the company's expansion to the low-income rural segment, as well as intense competition in the second-quarter 2009 that contributed to lower subscriber growth on a year-over-year basis. China Mobile reported 45% year-over-year growth in net income in the first-half 2008.

The Chinese wireless behemoth reported revenue of RMB212.9 billion (US$31.2 billion) for the period, up 8.9% year over year, partly driven by increased contribution from value-added services (28% of total revenue). EBITDA increased 5.8% year over year to RMB109.9 billion (US$16.1 billion) with EBITDA margin equating to 51.6%.

The company's value-added business, which includes SMS, Color Ring and MMS, continues to grow rapidly with revenue increasing 13.7%

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div style="text-align: justify;"RBC Capital is out with a call on Smartphones:br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"- Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)/span tgt is raised to $250 from $190br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"- Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM)/span tgt is raised to $150 from $100br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"- Palm (NASAQ:PALM)/span tgt is raised to $25 from $18.br /br /All three are rated Outperform.br /br /RBC Capital believes smartphones represent the next wave of computing, and are truly “3C” devices – embodying the convergence of communication, computing, and content. In the report, they size the smartphone market, which we view as large, nascent, and underpenetrated. They also forecast the vendor landscape; predicting vertically integrated “challengers”, like Apple, RIM, Palm, and possibly others, will take significant market share from some incumbent cellphone, PC, and consumer electronics vendors. Others that, in their view, are positioned to benefit include: 1) carriers that “get it”; 2) smartphone suppliers/partners; and, 3) ...

Fiserv Inc. (FISV) recently enhanced its Mobile Money & Mobile Money FastTrack financial service by introducing an innovative rendering engine called “RenderRight" in this product suite. RenderRight will act as a customized banking interface to several mobile devices. These include Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry, Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) 3G iPhone and Palm Inc.’s (PALM) Palm Pre.

The incorporation of RenderRight will enable Fiserv’s Mobile Money services to optimize mobile banking service on this broad range of high-end mobile handsets.

Fiserv’s Mobile Money financial service is the industry's most complete mobile banking and payments solution because it supports consumers on all three mobile access modes -- Short Messaging Service (SMS), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and downloaded mobile applications. Mobile Money offers online and offline enrolment capabilities and integrates with core banking, online banking and electronic payments systems.

Fiserv has developed Mobile Money solutions on its existing

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