Huawei is very much interested in partnership for Cloud Cmputing

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's No.2 network equipment maker, said it is open to acquiring and partnering companies with expertise in producing software for cloud computing.
 

Global technology companies from Cisco Systems Inc to Oracle Corp have been acquiring companies to boost their capabilities in cloud computing -- the latest network technology trend that stores applications, data and software online.

"Huawei is a private company, so our acquisitions won't be for huge amounts like other listed companies," Li Sanqi, chief technology officer of Huawei's IT hardware product line, told Reuters on the sidelines of a company event.

"I feel that we will have acquisitions in the cloud and ICT (information and communications technology) arenas. We are searching, but we'll be careful in the United States for political reasons," he said from Shenzhen in southern China, where the company is based.

The cloud computing sector, which allows users to download games, music, documents and other files from huge online databases to handheld devices, is expected to reach $3.2 billion this year in Asia alone from $1.87 billion last year, market research firm IDC said.

The cloud market globally could reach $55 billion in 2014, IDC said.

Over the past year or so, global companies have been stepping up deals with cloud-related companies.

Cisco Systems said in March that it planned to buy privately held software company newScale Inc and late last year, and had struck a sales partnership deal with business software company BMC Software Inc to sell cloud devices.

Last week, Oracle Corp signed a deal to buy online customer service company RightNow Technologies Inc for about $1.5 billion, sparking speculation of bids for other cloud technology companies.

"A lot of cloud technology companies are based in the United States. We have some partnerships in the United States. Other than the United States, we are also looking at Israel, Canada and China," Li said.

(C) Reuters

Operator groups from Asia and Latin America are rising up in terms of subscriber base

Operator groups present in fast-growing mobile markets in Asia and Latin America are continuing to rise up the rankings in the latest Wireless Intelligence 'Scoreboard,' which this month tracked the top 20 global operator groups based on majority-owned assets in Q2 2011. Minority holdings (less than 50% plus one share) are excluded from this analysis.


The top five positions are unchanged from when we last tracked the connections 'Scoreboard' a year ago (Q2 2010), but there were significant rises elsewhere for operators based in markets such as China, India and Indonesia.


However, the largest increase in the ranking was due to a merger: VimpelCom's acquisition of Wind Telecom, which closed earlier this year. The US$6 billion deal saw VimpelCom acquire the Wind-branded businesses in Italy, plus (via Wind's majority stake in Orascom Telecom) the Orascom networks in fast-growing markets such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Algeria as well as its indirect ownership of Wind Canada.


The consolidation of the Wind Telecom businesses into VimpelCom led to a 115 percent year-on-year increase in VimpelCom's connections base in Q2, propelling it eight places up our ranking list to #6 on 191.9 million total connections. VimpelCom's expansion pushed both China Unicom (#7) and India's Reliance (#8) down one place each from a year ago.


Meanwhile, the top five spots are all held by operator groups with over 200 million total connections each. China Mobile (#1) remains the world's largest mobile operator by some distance, surpassing 600 million connections in Q2 2011. Vodafone (#2), America Movil (#3), Telefonica (#4) and Indian market-leader Bharti (#5) make up the rest of the top five. Bharti's US$3.2 billion in mobile revenue in Q2 2011 is considerably lower than the four other operators in the top five, reflecting Bharti's presence in the ultra low-cost, low-margin Indian and African markets.


China Mobile's two main domestic rivals also make the top 20; China Unicom at #7 and China Telecom at #12, the latter rising up the ranking by seven places year-on-year. Indian operators are also well-represented; as well as Bharti (#5), Reliance (#8), Idea Cellular (#17), state-owned BSNL (#18) and Tata Docomo (#19) also feature in the top 20. India was also the main driver of connections growth at Vodafone (#2) over the year. The UK-based firm agreed to increase its stake in the country's third-placed operator, Vodafone Essar, earlier this year.


Operators in mature markets saw much slower growth, and in some cases connections are in decline. Deutsche Telekom (#14), for example, dropped six places in our ranking from a year ago and reported a 2 percent fall in connections to 105.9 million. France Telecom (#21) dropped out of the top 20 altogether, despite an 8 percent year-on-year increase in connections in their majority-owned markets to 84.9 million. France Telecom has one of the highest proportions of minority ownership stakes – including UK joint-venture Everything Everywhere – the total of which would give the group 192 million connections. Both European giants are in the process of disposing of non-core assets. France Telecom is looking to sell-off minority assets in Portugal, Austria and Switzerland, while Deutsche Telekom is in the process of attempting to sell its US business (T-Mobile USA) to AT&T.


US market-leader Verizon Wireless (#13) fell two positions from last year, while rival AT&T (#16) was unchanged. Like the mature European operators, however, mobile revenues were significantly higher than at their emerging market counterparts. The next edition of the Wireless Intelligence 'Scoreboard' will track the top 20 operator groups by revenue in Q4 2011.

Mobile operator group global ranking by connections; Q2 2011

Rank	Operator Group	Connections (million)	YoY growth, connections	YoY change, rank	Mobile revenue (US$ billion)
1	China Mobile	616.8	11%	0	20.3
2	Vodafone Group	367.4	15%	0	15.5
3	América Móvil Group	236.0	12%	0	7.7
4	Telefónica Group	227.3	47%	0	12.5
5	Bharti Airtel Group	221.2	25%	0	3.2
6	VimpelCom Group	191.9	115%	+8	4.6
7	China Unicom	181.6	16%	-1	4.0
8	Reliance Comms	143.3	29%	-1	1.0
9	Telenor Group	123.6	36%	+4	2.7
10	MTN Group	119.4	18%	0	3.5
11	Sistema Group	110.8	8%	-2	2.5
12	China Telecom	108.4	45%	+7	2.4
13	Verizon Wireless	106.3	7%	-2	14.7
14	Deutsche Telekom	105.9	-2%	-6	9.4
15	Telkomsel	102.3	16%	+1	1.4
16	AT&T	98.6	10%	0	14.2
17	Idea Cellular	95.1	38%	+5	1.0
18	BSNL	93.7	29%	+2	--
19	Tata DOCOMO (TTSL)	91.0	25%	+2	--
20	Telecom Italia Group	86.8	16%	-2	4.8

Source: Wireless Intelligence

(C) Mobile Business Briefing