Vivendi eyes 100% stake in SFR in 2011

Vivendi aims to acquire the remaining 44% stake in SFR, held by Vodafone. Jean-Bernard Levy, Chairman of Vivendi, expects to start discussions next year with the balance of the sale of NBC Universal. The exit from NBC Universal is closed to finalization, it should be completed before the end of the year.

Vodafone already sold its stake in China Mobile in September, recovering $6 billion and intended to restructure other businesses in SFR, Verizon, Polkomtel or Bharti.

India: Aircel Chooses Ericsson For 3G/HSPA Network Roll Out

Aircel, India’s leading mobile operator, part of Maxis Communications Berhad, Malaysia, has selected Ericsson to roll out its 3G/HSPA network across six out of thirteen geographic market areas. The new network will serve more than 100 million customers and will offer different services such as video telephony, mobile broadband, mobile TV, video on demand and others including music downloads, video tones, instant messaging and online gaming.

Gurdeep Singh, COO of Aircel says: “For many people in India connected for the first time, 3G mobile broadband will bring completely new types of services and benefits. We are confident that with this partnership, we will benefit from Ericsson’s global expertise of 3G deployments, and will be able to offer our customers a world-class 3G experience”.

The six Aircel circles in which Ericsson will provide are: Tamil Nadu Bihar; Orissa; Jammu Kashmir; North East; and Assam.

Iliad results driven by Free for Q310

Iliad group published its results for the third quarter of 2010 and reported a 5% growth in revenue. This growth is driven by the Free brand, as Alice continue to struggle. Iliad signed 108.000 broadband subscribers since September 2009 (+250.000 for Free and -142.000 for Alice). Iliad acquired Alice from Telecom Italia in 2008.

Iliad suffered from the competition of Quadruple play offers of Orange, Bouygues Telecom and SFR. These competitors registered more new subcribers than Iliad (Bouygues Telecom : +120.000, Orange : +97.000, SFR : +91.000). Iliad was awarded the fourth mobile licence, but the commercial launch is set for 2012, so the company will focus on a major innovation, not yet announced.

Viasat Partners with LG for On-Demand Content

Modern Time Group, the broadcasting group which owned Viasat, announced a strategic partnership with LG Electronics to provide Viasat OnDemand on all LG TV sets with NetCast feature. This functionality allows interactive connected services. Viasat OnDemand is available in the Nordic Region. Viasat OnDemand includes live sports, tv shows, movies and catch up tv from Nordic channels.

Hans-Holger Albrecht,President and CEO of MTG, said : “The cooperation with LG is a key step in broadening the availability of our Viasat OnDemand service, which is already accessible through Viasat’s OnDemand set-top box, our online portal, on mobile phones and now also directly via broadband-enabled TV sets. Our ‘Entertainment at your command’ service is all about making our unrivalled range of premium sports, movies and TV content available to viewers on a platform, network and device agnostic basis.”

Mobile market in Moldavia returns to growth

The National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI) of Moldavia published data for the mobile market in September 2010. After the recession in 2009, the market returned to a growing tendency. Compared to the same period of last year, the turnover of the industry grew by 15.4% to 2.541 billion MLD ($217 million) and the ARPU reached 105.1MLD ($89.8).

There are 3 mobile operators in Moldova : Orange Moldova, Moldcell and Moldtelecom. The subscriber base reached 2.959 million and penetration rate by inhabitant grew by 4.6% to 89%, while 3G users rose to 105.900. Orange Moldova is the market leader in terms of subscribers with64.8% of market share, followed by Moldcell (31.8%) and Moldtelecom (3.4.%)

Swedish Private Equity Firm Parsifal Offers to Acquire France Telecom’s Channels

In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro, Peter Ekelund CEO of Parsifal said that the Swedish-based investment fund is ready to acquire France Telecom’s pay-TV channel Orange Cinema Series and is waiting to see what the operator’s terms are: “I have a clear idea of the price we would like to pay but I’m waiting to see what are France Telecom’s terms” he said.

Peter Ekelund added that his group is prepared to act quickly and that his offer did not raise any competition issues, unlike that of Vivendi’s Canal+.

If successful, Parsifal plans to propose the channel to all providers, not only to France Telecom, which will multiply the current subscriber base by five or six and make the TV channels more profitable according to Ekelund.

Telekom Austria’s IPTV service reached 134.000 subscribers

Telekom Austria published its results for the third quarter of 2010 and registered revenues of €1.19 billion for the period, it represents a 3.8% decrease compared to the same period last year. The group explained this negative result by the high competition, added by regulatory measures and structures costs.

AonTV, the IPTV service of Telekom Austria continued to grow and drive the improvement in line losses. In Q3 2010, AonTV had 134.000 subscribers compared to 86.000 in Q309 (+55.3%). This trend followed the growth of fixed broadband lines, which now reached 1.119.400 compared to 982.600 in September 2009 (+13.9%). There is a strong demand for Kombi-packages, including mobile broadband. This segment is successful with a 32.5% growth to 615.000 subscribers.

Prisa Doubles 9-month Net Profit

Spanish media group Prisa has just released its results for the 9-month period ended September 30, 2010.

PRISA posted revenues of 2,299.53 million euros, of which 25% came from outside Spain. Revenues from international operations grew by 7.2% (+12.2% Latin America) and interests on debt decreased by 33%. Group advertising revenues grew by 8.6%. The Group has also doubled its net profit during the 9-month period.

The Audiovisual sector posted revenues of 1,205.74 million euros with an EBITDA of 211.66 million euros, and a margin of 17.6%. DIGITAL+ had revenues of 817.51 million euros and an EBITDA of 204.66 million euros (25.0% margin).

Total subscribers to DIGITAL+ reached 1,772,677 subscribers as of September. There has been a positive trend in the evolution of Digital+ subscribers: gross additions to DIGITAL+ increased by 9.6% in comparison with the same period of the last year and cancellations decreased by 15.0%. This positive trend has continued during the month of October and is expected to continue for the rest of the year according to the company’s press release.

TDC Chooses Ericsson For Its LTE Network Upgrade

TDC, Denmark’s leading operator, has chosen Ericsson to upgrade its 4G network. Ericsson will roll out a complete 4G/LTE solution – including radio access and core network equipment – as well as managed services. This is Ericsson’s first full-scope managed service contract for an LTE/Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network. Customers will benefit from enhanced experiences when accessing data-rich services with unmatched speeds. Latency and bandwidth will be greatly improved with the new LTE network.

The contract includes radio access network with RBS 6000 series, a complete Evolved Packet Core solution as well as the full scope of managed services. The roll out of the network starts immediately.

Canal+ Interested in Spanish pay-TV Acquisition

French pay TV operator Canal+ has expressed interest in acquiring a stake in Spainish pay-TV platform Digital+.  In an interview with the Financial Times, Bertrand Méheut, CEO of Canal+, said that he was “open” to buying the Spanish broadcaster. However, Mr. Méheut stated that there were currently no talks about this move.

Last year, Prisa, owner of Digital+ had rejected a €2.4 billion join acquisition offer from Vivendi / Telefonica, and sold 44% of the pay TV platfom to Telefonica and Mediaset. “I believe for the Spanish market, Telefónica could be prepared to work with us,” Mr Méheut said, adding there had been no discussions.

In the first half of the year, Canal+ Group revenues were €2,327 million, a 3.1% increase compared to the same period last year. The ARPU reached €46.3, increasing €+1.9 compared with last year.