The STC Group announced that along with its affiliates, the Maxis and Oger Groups, they have selected Ericsson as one of their preferred global vendors for network infrastructure, as part of their global synergy creation activities. The agreement will allow Ericsson to offer its portfolio of network infrastructure equipment through a global price structure based on total business in Bahrain, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey.

In 2010 the telco groups jointly launched a series of global initiatives focused on capturing synergies across their nine operating companies and on working with best-in-class global suppliers to become preferred partners based on value creating agreements.

One of the initiatives is to focus on technology infrastructure synergies, with an objective of developing a global price book and formalising volume discounts based on overall groups scale.

Vodafone Group reported a revenue drop in the quarter to June 30, 2012, noting that “macroeconomic and competitive pressures in southern Europe have intensified further”.

In a statement, Vittorio Colao, the company’s chief executive, said that “despite the difficult market conditions, particularly in southern Europe, we continue to make progress in the key areas of data, enterprise and emerging markets, while maintaining our tight control of our cost base”.

Revenue for the period was £10.77 billion (US$16.71 billion), down 7.7 per cent year-on-year. Group service revenue was £9.98 billion, down 8.1 per cent. The company did not provide profit figures for this quarter, it only reports profit half-yearly, for the periods to September 30 and March 31.

The company ended the period with 146.95 million customers, down from 148.49 million at April 1, mainly due to losses in its core northern European businesses.

For its Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific unit, service revenue fell by four per cent, with growth in India slowing due to regulatory impacts on data and messaging. Vodacom experienced some weakness in South Africa, due to increased competition on mobile voice and data pressure. Specifically, there were small revenue rises in Turkey (up  three per cent) and Egypt (up six per cent) in the quarter.

Integrated voice, data and SMS plans now represent 50 per cent of consumer contract revenue in European markets, up from 32 per cent one year ago.

Vodafone said that fixed-line revenue now makes up 8.7 per cent of its Group service revenue, with the company having 6.3 million fixed broadband customers.

Free cash flow of £900 million was down £300 million year-on-year, due to the timing of dividend payments to minority shareholders in Vodacom and Vodafone Egypt, and the end of dividends from SFR following the disposal of its stake in this business.

Capital expenditure of £1.1 billion was £100 million lower year-on-year, with the company stating that its investment focus remains on network quality “in terms of coverage, reliability and speed.”

The group has maintained its outlook for the financial year.

Mobility to its balance sheet for the first time, even though the handset unit reported a significant loss.

Revenue for the quarter ended June 30 rose to US$12.21 billion, with Motorola accounting for US$1.25 billion (10 per cent) of the total.

Motorola‘s results were included from May 22, the date the acquisition closed, to the end of the reporting period – described as a “stub quarter” by Google. The unit reported an operating loss of US$192 million.

“We can expect Motorola to continue to show some accounting variability, as is typical with the closing of such large transactions,” said CFO Patrick Pichette.

“We’re excited about the potential to build great devices for users,” said CEO Larry Page with regards to Motorola. He added that the recent launch of the Nexus 7 tablet had generated “rave reviews.”

Google reported Q2 net income of US$2.79 billion up from US$2.51 billion a year earlier.

Nokia announced a sharp fall in sales leading in Q112, resulting in a loss of €1.4 billion (US$1.73 billion) for the period.

During the three months (April to June) volumes of its Windows Phone-powered Lumia range increased to four million units. However, it also noted that on a sequential basis, the average selling price (ASP) of the Lumia range fell to €186 from €220.

With the company having shipped 10.2 million smartphones during the quarter, this means that Symbian and MeeGo devices still make up more than 60 per cent of these sales.

Sales for the quarter amounted to €7.5 billion, down 19 per cent from €9.3 billion. On an operating level, the loss amounted to €826 million, compared with a loss of €487 million in Q2 2011.

In its Smart Devices unit, net sales fell by 34 per cent to €1.5 billion, as volumes fell by 39 per cent to 10.2 million units. More encouragingly, average selling prices increased both year-on-year (up seven per cent) and quarter-on-quarter (up six per cent) to €151, aided by stabilisation in the Symbian portfolio.

Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO noted that Nokia’s mass-market Mobile Phones unit “demonstrated stability,” with a two per cent year-on-year increase in shipment volumes to 73.5 million. However, sales for this business declined by 11 per cent year-on-year to €2.3 billion, with average selling prices dropping by 14 per cent (six per cent over the prior quarter) to €31.

It was noted that volumes of its higher-priced feature phones were impacted by “competition from more affordable smartphones and from competitors with broader portfolios of feature phones with more smartphone-like experiences, such as full touch devices.”

As a whole, the Devices & Services business saw an operating loss of €474 million, compared with a prior year loss of €216 million, on revenue of €4 billion, down from €5.5 billion. Total volumes fell by five per cent to 83.7 million units.

Elop said that for the Location & Commerce division, “our business with auto-industry customers continued to grow, and we made good progress establishing our location-based platform with businesses like Yahoo, Flickr and Bing”. This unit reported an operating loss of €95 million on sales of €283 million, up four per cent.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) saw an operating loss of €227 million for the quarter on sales of €3.3 billion, down from €3.6 billion a year earlier. Elop said that this business “returned to underlying operating profitability through strong execution of its focused strategy.”

Nokia said that on a year-on-year basis, NSN experienced a decline in sales of infrastructure equipment as well as slower operator investment environments in certain markets, including Europe. This was partially offset by a slight increase in services sales.

Ericsson reported that net sales in Q212 to end-June increased one per cent year-on-year to SEK55.3 billion (US$8.13 billion), and was up nine per cent quarter-on-quarter. However, net income fell a staggering 63 per cent in the quarter to SEK1.2 billion from SEK3.2 billion a year earlier. The company said net income was impacted by lower profitability in Networks and increased loss in ST-Ericsson.

“In 2010 we made a conscious decision to gain market share and increase technology and services leadership, well aware of the short-term profitability pressure. Our focus is now on translating these gains into sustainable profitable growth," commented Hans Vestberg, Ericsson and president and CEO.

Ericsson explained that Networks sales decreased 17 per cent year-on-year to SEK27.8 billion due to the expected decline in CDMA equipment sales as well as weaker sales in China and Russia.

Global Services and Support Solutions showed strong performance, up 26 per cent and 47 per cent year-on-year respectively, with Ericsson describing that the underlying business mix, with higher share of coverage projects than capacity projects, was unchanged in the quarter and is expected to prevail short-term.