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Mobile Phones

Promptu Launches Voice Search Service for Mobile Phones

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 20, 2006 - 7:41am.
Menlo Park, Calif. - AgileTV, a developer of voice-activated search and navigation services, announced on Monday that it has changed its name to Promptu, and launched a version of its search technology for mobile devices. Promptu will let mobile subscribers use voice commands to search a wireless carrier's library of music, videos, ringtones, games and other content.
tags: Promptu | Voice Search | Mobile Phones |

Amp'd Mobile, MTV2 to Offer First Full Concert Streamed to Mobile Phones

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 15, 2006 - 10:08am.
Los Angeles - Amp'd Mobile, a youth-focused mobile virtual network operator, announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with MTV2 to offer what it says is the first full live concert streamed to mobile phones in the U.S. Los Angeles-based Amp'd Mobile will offer a free full concert from Island Records artists Fall Out Boy, performing with The All-American Rejects and Hawthorne Heights in Camden, N.J. on March 19. The company will also offer downloads of live audio tracks, video clips and ringtones. The Amp'd Mobile service is slated to launch nationwide at the end of the year.
tags: Amp'd Mobile | Mobile Phones | MTV2 | Full Concert |

Flytext to Promote Stephen King's "Cell" on Mobile Phones

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 18, 2006 - 3:48am.
New York - Scribner, author Stephen King's book publisher, said on Wednesday that it has hired mobile marketing firm Flytxt to promote King's upcoming book, "Cell." Consumers who sign up for the mobile Stephen King VIP Club via text message will receive access to mobile content such as King ringtones, wallpapers and a monologue podcast from the author.
tags: Mobile Phones | Flytext | Stephen King | Cell |

Nokia Introduces Three New Multimedia Mobile Phones

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 2, 2005 - 4:04am.
Espoo, Finland - Nokia on Wednesday introduced three new multimedia-equipped cell phones, including the first handset to offer a built-in DVB-H mobile TV receiver. The Nokia N92, with the DVB-H receiver, will allow users to both watch and record live TV. The latest Nokia XpressMusic phone, the Nokia N71, includes stereo FM radio, and support for digital music and videos. The company also introduced the first phone to feature UPnP technology, which allows it to display photos taken with the phone on a TV, play audio tracks stored on the phone on a connected audio system or PC, and wirelessly print to a UPnP-enabled printer. The new phones are expected to begin selling in the first half of 2006, priced roughly between $480 and $720.
tags: Nokia | Multimedia | Mobile Phones |

Report: Two-Thirds of U.S. Households Have Mobile Phones

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 14, 2005 - 9:36am.
Cambridge, Mass. -- Two-thirds of U.S. households have at least one mobile phone, according to a new survey of 5,600 household by Forrester Research. Single-phone households are currently a declining minority, while households with four or more have grown at a rate of 57% in the past year, the survey found. "The wireless market continues to defy predictions that it is approaching its saturation point," says Forrester Research principal analyst Charles Golvin. While consumers keep buying, however, they are apparently far from ecstatic with their mobile providers. "Despite carriers' focus on improving their networks and customer service, customer satisfaction has declined over the past three years and hovers around 50% in key categories like customer service and call dependability," said Gilvin. After currently planned consolidations, the top three mobile carriers will be in seven out of 10 mobile households: Cingular (28%), Verizon (27%) and Sprint/Nextel (15%), Forrester said.
tags: Reports | Mobile Phones | U.S. Households |

EU Report: 81% of European Homes Have Mobile Phones

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 4, 2004 - 3:09am.
Brussels -- According to the "Telecoms Services Indicators 2004" report conducted on behalf of the European Commission (EC), approximately 81% of European households said they own at least one mobile phone. The Commission said the news puts the number of mobile phones per household on a par with the number of European homes having at least one fixed-line phone. The report also found that fixed telephony penetration in the EU, which currently stands at about 82%, has actually dropped by 3% since last year. The Commission said the overall proportion of households with access to a telephone at home in 2004 was 97%, while 66% of households own both fixed and mobile phones. Only 3% of EU households have no telephone at all.
tags: Mobile Phones | EU Reports | European Homes |

Popularity of Mobile Phones Gives Rise to "M-Agers"

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 23, 2004 - 7:55am.
London -- Mobile phones have become so widespread in the U.K. that they have come to define an entire generation -- the so-called "M-Ager" -- according to an ongoing behavioral study of more than 1,400 mobile phone users. The "Me, My Mobile and I" survey, conducted over the last four years by the Teleconomy Group, found that more than 26% of British children between the ages of 10 and 14 are so emotionally attached to their mobile phones that they say they could not live without them. The study also found that M-Agers were by far the most sophisticated users in the U.K., demanding increasingly functional phones that allow a high degree of personalization. "These are a group of people who have never known life without a mobile phone and therefore can't imagine functioning without it," said Teleconomy Chairman Michael Hulme.
tags: Mobile Phones | M-Agers | Rise |

Report: Global Demand for Mobile Phones Set to Soar

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 10, 2004 - 10:25am.
London -- Demand for mobile phones is surging the world over, according a new report conducted by market research Gartner. The report found that total global sales of mobile handsets soared by 34% to more than 153 million units in the first quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Gartner said that such a good start to the year could mean that as many as 600 million handsets would be sold by year's end. In Western Europe, where demand was much stronger than expected, the recent launch of 3G services by Vodafone (U.K.), T-Mobile (Germany) and TIM (Italy) should lead to a considerable rise in 3G phone sales in the second quarter, Gartner said. Although its market share in Western Europe shrank from 34% to 29%, Finnish giant Nokia still leads the pack after selling more than 44.2 million handsets, a 5-million-unit year-on-year increase. Nokia's loss was mostly Motorola's gain, and the company pointed to particularly robust sales in Europe as the reason behind its increase in sales from 16.7 million units in the first quarter last year to more than 25 million units this year.
tags: Report | Mobile Phones | Soar | Global Demand |

Report: Mobile Phones Add $26.6 Billion to U.K. Coffers

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 10, 2004 - 2:25am.
London -- According to a new report conducted by the U.K. Centre for Economic and Business Research and commissioned by local mobile operator mmO2, England's mobile phone sector now contributes more than $26.6 billion to the U.K. economy every year, putting the industry on equal footing with oil and gas extraction in terms of tax income (2.3%). "No one should underestimate the impact of the mobile (sector) on economic prosperity," said mmO2 CEO Peter Erskine in a statement. "This is a significant industry making a major contribution to the economy and, given the right conditions, it is set to increase its impact." The report also found that the U.K. mobile industry employs more than 200,000 people who each account for about $212,800 of revenue per year. Erskine said the mobile industry in the U.K. had grown over the last 20 years from zero to "something bigger than the whole of the print, paper and publishing sector."
tags: Reports | U.K | Mobile Phones | Coffers |

Nokia to Send TV Programs to Mobile Phones by 2004

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 17, 2003 - 4:48am.
Helsinki -- Mobile phone maker Nokia announced this week that it plans to work with Finnish broadcasters and mobile service providers to begin sending commercial TV shows to mobile phones by 2004. The Finnish company, currently the No. 1 handset maker in the world, said that by next fall it would employ the Internet protocol datacast (IPDC) to offer an initial 500 users in the Helsinki region trial TV shows. Nokia Ventures' Timo Teimonen said the pilot program was "a world class example of cooperation between telecommunications and media industry to further research the opportunities of broadcast services to mobile phones."
tags: Nokia | Mobile Phones | TV Programs |

Report: Mobile Phone Users to Surpass 1.75 Billion in 2007

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 30, 2003 - 9:27am.
London -- According to a new study conducted by research firm the Yankee Group, there will be more than 1.75 billion mobile-phone users worldwide in 2007. However, (average revenue per user) ARPU will decline sharply over the same time period, the group predicted in its report, entitled "Data ARPUs Save the Day for Wireless Operators." Global subscribers will grow by nearly 9% from 2002 to 2007, while revenue will grow by roughly the same percentage over the same time frame, the report predicted.
tags: Raise | Mobile Phones | Users | Surpass |