Last week, some major players in the mobile industry released Q1-09 financials, as well as announcements about upcoming new projects, and not everything is doom and gloom. In fact, there are some significant bright spots. Although the global recession continues to impact the global markets for mobile services and mobile handset, it does so in ways that are quite varied from market to market. 
 
NTT DoCoMo, arguably the most technically advanced mobile service provider on the planet, announced that its net profit dropped by 70% as a result of weak handset sales and increased 3G service costs.  DoCoMo sold 20.1 million handsets in its latest fiscal year (ending March  31).  Factors that lead to the decline is a Japanese market saturated with the devices and the leap to 3G+ by every subscriber.  DoCoMo can only expand by taking market share from its rivals and motivating buyers with lower subscription fees.

In the U.S., Verizon Wireless is definitely on a roll.  Verizon Wireless had 86.6 million customers at the end of the quarter, an increase of 28.8 percent year over year.  This number includes 13.2 million net total customer additions, after conforming adjustments, from the acquisition of Alltel.  In the first quarter, data revenues were nearly 28.0 percent of all service revenues, up from 23.0 percent in the first quarter 2008.  Additionally, the company announced the awarding of LTE equipment contracts, of which Alcatel-Lucent was a major beneficiary.

ALU, last week, signed two agreements totaling $1.7 billion with China Mobile (world’s largest mobile operator with 400 million subscribers), and China Telecom.  We expect to see mobile infrastructure spending to increase in China by more than 10% this year in contrast to a forecasted global decline. 

How much decline will be clearly determined when, in the next few weeks, we receive more Q1-09 results from the mobile equipment vendors.