Month: October 2014

Apple Pay Heats the Race for Mobile Payments

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Apple Pay Heats mPayment RaceNon innovators in the Business are giving Apple run for its money in Mobile Payment by Lobbying. Apple Pay’s impact on the payments world in the US and internationally has been felt in the Silicon valley where PayPal was separated from Ebay and in Emerging Markets where are we likely to see m-Pesa -like disruptions.

Apple’s mobile wallet Apple Pay is one of the 200+ digital wallets in the market. Most mobile wallets ventures have been unsuccessful because consumers and merchants are conservative in payment behavior. Apple Pay is likely to more successful than rival digital wallets as it (1) has a critical mass of partners across the payment value chain, including card networks, issuers, processors and merchants, (2) critical mass of US smart phone market (c40%), and (3) they should be

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What Business is Nokia Focused after SmartPhone Spinoff ?

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New Nokia Business UnitsPost the sale of Nokia’s Devices(Mobile & SmartPhone) business to Microsoft, Finnish-based Nokia is targeting network infrastructure (Networks), location / maps (HERE) and intellectual property monetisation / advanced technology development (Technologies).

Going forward the Networks business will represent c.85%-90% of sales and comprise two reporting segments – Mobile Broadband (mobile operator radio and core network hardware / software) and Global Services (network implementation, managed services, customer

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Bharti Infratel Riding Reliance Jio Network Expansion

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Bharti Infratel TowersBharti Infratel [Telecom Tower & Infrastructure Company] together with Indus towers, has been gaining market share. Bulk of tenancy additions during the quarter came from data networks (by definition, this excludes the 3G loading sites which do not contribute to the tenancy number). This suggests that a decent amount of new 3G/4G site demand is coming up already (as against the expectation of 3G loading continuing on existing 2G locations continuing). Reliance Jio contributed significantly to qoq surge in additions reported by Bharti Infratel standalone [agreement with Indus signed end of 2Q]. However, strong 2Q volume growth did not translate into commensurate rev growth given late quarter tenancy pick up.

Bharti Infratel Fiber Backhaul
Mgmt said that Under its current IP-1 license, BIL / Indus are allowed to deploy only dark fiber, but to run active fiber business, it would have to come under current licensing regime that would result in 8% license fee payment to government. The differences between tower business and fibre business in terms of the pace of technological change, duration of contracts and pricing, that have forced the company to deliberate more on fibre business opportunity. Mgmt. acknowledged the need for fibre in the country given expected data growth, and therefore it would be looking at this opportunity much more

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Wearable Tech Taking Off – Garmin Connect App Sees Increased Adoption

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Wearable Computing Picks UpAccording to App Annie’s report “Spotlight on connected devices: Welcome to your wired life” the top five Health and Fitness apps for connected devices collectively grew over 2.3x in monthly downloads since August 2013.

As of August 2014, the Garmin Connect app is the #3 Health and Fitness app for connected devices, behind the Fitbit app and the Up by Jawbone app, and ahead of the Nike+ Fuelband app. We believe this implies

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Which Way will India Go 3G or 4G-LTE ?

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India Mobile Data 3G 4GDespite growth takeoff, 3G penetration is merely 7-10% of the existing mobile subscriber base in India. One key deterrent to a broad based data adoption has been expensive 3G handsets. With the launch of Android One the USD 100 handset segment has seen more depth. With the availability of low-cost 3G smartphones, existing subscribers are unlikely to continue using 2G feature phones, opting instead to make the switch to 3G smartphones; in this respect, the trends over the last six months have been very encouraging. We believe the trend will now change in favour of low cost smartphones versus feature phones.

Furthermore 3G coverage is expected to improve; more so as incumbent telcos gear up to contest 4G launch by Reliance Jio. Given this first positive

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How Paypal Makes Money after Spin off from eBay ?

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How PayPal Makes MoneyNot many of you all have an understanding on how eBay’s PayPal segment makes money (sources of revenue, the fees (take rates) by segment, the impact of geographic mix, the impact of P2P on take rate, etc.). This issue will become increasingly important, as investors focus in on the potential impact of the proposed split of eBay and PayPal and the value and mechanics of the two businesses.

eBay’s Payments segment revenue can be split into 3 main categories – on eBay, Merchant Services (off eBay) and Person-to- Person (P2P). At a high level, it is estimated that eBay Transaction Volume of $61.1bn in CY14 and Transaction Rev at $3.1bn, with an avg. transaction fee of 5.1%. We estimate

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Idea Cellular Data ARPU / Usage up 10% QoQ – Voice Lowers

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Idea Cellular 3G Data GrowsIdea Cellular pure wireless services revenue growth accelerated to 21% yoy, a combination of 17% yoy voice volume growth (to 162.5 bn minutes; 3.5% ahead of expectations; down 1.7% qoq) and 3% blended yoy RPM improvement (to 45.9 paise / minute; 1.6% below expectations). Voice RPM declined 2.4% qoq and 3.1% yoy to 36.2 paise/min IDEA added 4.6mn subs in 2Q taking the total subscribers to 143.6 Mn subscribers at end of Sept-2014.

Idea Cellular Data business continues to fire on all cylinders
IDEA added 3mn data subscribers

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