There were 96.7 million mobile phone shipments in the second quarter worldwide, representing a plateau in replacement rates by consumers, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. The group is forecasting that there will be 417 million wireless handset shipments for the full year 2002. “Replacement rates have steadily fallen over the past 18… Continue reading Global Mobile Replacement Rates Decline Stabilises

European online trade revenues are expected to multiply in the next few years and will account for more than a fifth of all business trade by 2006, according to a new study by Forrester Research. The Future Of Europe’s Online B2B Trade reported on thirteen different industries in fifteen European countries and predicts that electrical… Continue reading EU Online Trade To Exceed €2 Trillion In 2006, Says Forrester

Germany’s solitary pay-TV service Premiere World has been put up for auction and is believed to have attracted interest from twenty potential buyers. Premiere has 2.4 million subscribers but has been losing money since launch and contributed in no small way to the collapse of its parent company, Kirch Gruppe. Possible bidders are thought to… Continue reading Struggling Premiere Goes Under The Hammer

UK cable operator, Telewest Communications, today moved closer to what seems to be its inevitable financial restructure as the company’s bank group agreed to permit it to enter discussions with bondholders and other relevant parties. The discussions will see Telewest formulating a plan to restructure its balance sheet in order to relieve the group of… Continue reading Telewest Gains Bank’s Consent For Restructure

Liberty Media is set to make a second bid for Deutsche Telekom’s cable television assets, after its previous attempt was thwarted by the German Federal Cartel Office earlier in the year (see German Regulators Block Liberty Cable Deal). According to a report in today’s Financial Times, Liberty has forged an alliance with private equity investment… Continue reading Liberty Media Puts Together Second Deutsche Telekom Bid

According to a report in today’s Financial Times, Vivendi Universal is examining the possibility of selling its Express-Expansion magazine division as it looks to reduce a debt burden of E19 billion. Express-Expansion publishes sixteen titles including the French current affairs magazine, L’Express and potential buyers include the Dassault arms group which owns the centre-right newspaper,… Continue reading Vivendi Considers Sale Of Magazine Business

People who have watched or listened to streaming media online in the past week buy more compact discs than the average American, according to a new study by Arbitron and Edison Media Research. The report, Internet 9: The Media and Entertainment World of Online Consumers found that weekly “Streamies” bought twenty-one CDs in the last… Continue reading Streaming Media Encourages Music Sales, Says Report

Prominent cable and DSL providers in the US added a combined 1.37 million broadband internet subscribers in the second quarter of this year, according to Leichtman Research Group. By the mid-point of this year, the major US providers had over 13.5 million broadband subscribers between them. More than 65% of these users connect to the… Continue reading US Cable Firms Reap The Broadband Bounty

Advertising revenues at US newspapers continue to be weak, with the latest round of figures from some of the country’s largest publishing groups showing steep declines in national adspend. According to a report from the World Advertising Research Centre, USA Today – the biggest-selling US paper – saw national ad volumes fall by 16.0% in… Continue reading US Papers Continue To Suffer Ad Declines

The enticing combination of entertainment content and networking technologies could provide a huge boost to internet service and content providers, as well as to electronics manufacturers, as consumers seek to create ‘networked digital entertainment homes’. This is the premise of a report to be released next month by Parks Associates, which finds that the transfer… Continue reading Digital Networked Entertainment Homes Could Have Mass Appeal