Apple can no longer pursue an injunction against Motorola Mobility, after a US judge dismissed the iPhone maker's smartphone patents lawsuit.
Judge Richard Posner ended the case "with prejudice" between the firms, meaning that neither can re-file the suit - but an appeal is possible.
Reuters quoted a Motorola Mobility spokeswoman as being pleased about the dismissal of the case.
Apple declined to comment.
"Apple is complaining that Motorola's phones as a whole ripped off the iPhone as a whole," Judge Posner wrote in the 38-page ruling as he ended the case.
"But Motorola's desire to sell products that compete with the iPhone is a separate harm - and a perfectly legal one - from any harm caused by patent infringement."
The judge added that Apple had not clearly shown that its phones had "suffered loss of market share, brand recognition, or customer goodwill as a result of Motorola's alleged infringement of the patent claims still in play in this case."
'Expected' result“Start Quote
End Quote Florian Mueller Foss PatentsAnd [the companies] will keep trying elsewhere: this case is 100% certain to be appealed to the Federal Circuit”
Analysts say the outcome of the trial is not a huge surprise.
"Judge Posner had previously cancelled a jury trial and indicated his inclination to dismiss the case," wrote patent consultant Florian Mueller in his blog, Foss Patents.
Mr Mueller was recently commissioned by Microsoft to study certain types of patent litigation.
"[The companies] will keep trying elsewhere: this case is 100% certain to be appealed to the Federal Circuit."
According to Mr Mueller, the ruling shows that Apple: "Didn't do its homework in terms of expert reports and witnesses to be entitled to an injunction (or the alternative, monetary compensation) while it had the chance to do so.
"He (the judge) doesn't rule out that Apple might have won either an injunction or at least damages (if it had been given the chance to prove an infringement)."
Besides being a blow to Apple, the case could also have consequences for other patent disputes in future, added the analyst.
In February, Apple won a patent dispute against Motorola Mobility regarding a "slide-to-unlock" feature on smartphones.
Motorola Mobility is in the process of being acquired by Google, and most of its handsets run on the search firm's mobile operating system, Android.
The Android system is Apple's closest rival in the smartphone market.
Verizon, T-Mobile to Swap, Sell Spectrum - PC Magazine
T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless today announced a deal whereby both providers will purchase and swap spectrum in the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) band.
T-Mobile and Verizon said the deal will help boost their respective 4G LTE coverage.
The deal also includes spectrum that is part of Verizon's pending, $3.6 billion acquisition of spectrum owned by cable firms like Comcast, and a separate deal with Leap. As a result, the T-Mobile deal can only go through if regulators also approve Verizon's other pending spectrum deals.
In May, a collection of businesses - including T-Mobile and Sprint - joined together to form the Alliance for Broadband Competition, a lobbying group designed to block Verizon's purchase of the cable-owned spectrum.
In a statement today, the Alliance for Broadband Competition said that "while it's nice that Verizon will cede a small portion of its vast spectrum holdings to T-Mobile, that does nothing to mitigate the fact that Verizon and Cable want to stop competing, stop investing, and stop innovating to the great detriment of consumers and the American economy."
"Our position remains the same: we urge the DoJ and FCC to continue their thorough examination of these agreements to ensure a competitive telecommunications industry," the alliance said.
"This is good for T-Mobile and good for consumers because it will enable T-Mobile to compete even more vigorously with other wireless carriers," T-Mobile CEO and president Philipp Humm said in a statement. "We anticipate FCC approval later this summer, in time for us to incorporate this new spectrum into our network modernization and the rollout of LTE services next year."
T-Mobile plans to roll out its 4G LTE network in 2013, thanks in part to the AWS spectrum it gained from the failed AT&T merger deal as well as a $4 billion investment.
The AT&T deal provided T-Mobile with AWS spectrum in 128 cellular markets, including 12 of the top 20. T-Mobile said today that the additional Verizon spectrum will cover 60 million people in cities like Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Detroit, Minneapolis, Seattle, Cleveland, Columbus, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro, Memphis, and Rochester.
For more, see PCMag's Fastest Mobile Networks 2012.
For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.
Vodafone Looks to be a Decent Buy - GuruFocus
-Seven Year Annual Revenue Growth Rate: 4.5%
-Seven Year Annual Dividend Growth Rate: 14%
-Current Dividend Yield: 5.89%
-Balance Sheet Strength: Fairly Strong
I believe that Vodafone represents one of the better telecommunication investments at the current time, with global exposure and a strong dividend. Prices for the ADR in the mid to high $20′s look quite reasonable.
Overview
Vodafone Group Plc (NASDAQ: VOD, for the ADR) is a British telecommunications company that provides mobile services to customers around the world. They buy licenses for spectrum bands, and then build networks to provide voice communications, messaging communications, and data usage, to customers. Currently, the company operates 238,000 base stations for wireless transmission.The company has:
36 million mobile customers in Germany (a 100% stake)
30 million mobile customers in Italy (a 77% stake)
57 million mobile customers in Africa (a 65% stake)
19 million mobile customers in the UK (a 100% stake)
18 million mobile customers in Spain (a 100% stake)
150 million mobile customers in India (a 64% stake)
93 million mobile customers in the USA (a 45% stake in Verizon Wireless)
Plus other interests.
Ratios
Price to Earnings: 13Price to Free Cash Flow: 18
Price to Book: 1.1
Return on Equity: 8.5%
Revenue
(Chart Source: DividendMonk.com)
Vodafone has experienced revenue growth at 4.5% per year, which is quite solid. When I analyzed AT&T last week, I pointed out that their strong wireless and business growth was being offset by decreases in their legacy fixed-line voice business. Vodafone has a much purer focus on wireless services, and so revenue growth has been more consistent over this period. The company has, however, divested some holdings which has impacted revenue.
Earnings and Dividends
(Chart Source: DividendMonk.com)
Note: EPS for 2005, 2006, and 2007 were negative, not zero. To preserve the usefulness of the chart (otherwise scale would be quite skewed), those years are displayed as zero. Vodafone has written off goodwill in several years, which can have large impacts on financial reports for those years.
Free cash flow has remained consistently positive, but has not grown. The reasons for this primarily are that Vodafone has divested some of their assets to streamline the business. The company has sacrificed growth in exchange for better profitability and a focus on shareholder returns.
Dividend growth has remained solid. Even in years where EPS was negative due to goodwill reductions (an accounting loss), free cash flow remained solid and paid for growing dividends. The dividend grew at an annualized rate of more than 14% over this period, although more recent growth is in the mid to high single digits. The current dividend yield based on the dividend payments over the last fiscal year is 5.89%, which excludes the special dividend.
In fiscal year 2012 (which ended in early 2012), the company paid a special dividend of 4 pence which is not included in the chart or in the dividend yield calculation. For that fiscal year, the company paid out nearly 7 billion GBP in dividends and used 3.5 billion GBP for share repurchases.
Balance Sheet
Vodafone has a total debt/equity ratio of around 45%. Approximately half of equity consists of goodwill. Interest coverage is over 5, which is solid for the industry. Overall, Vodafone’s balance sheet is quite strong for the stable industry it operates in.Investment Thesis
A newsletter issue I published a couple months back focused on cloud computing and the effects it can have on lower-tech industries that aren’t on the cutting edge of cloud software. In short, the world is hungry for data. Mobile internet requires vast amounts of data for apps, movies, browsing, and rich media. Software-as-a-Service requires robust data usage and reliability. Enterprises have growing mobile needs. The need for data results in enormous capital expenditures, but also increases in revenue. Wireless services in particular have grown exponentially.Vodafone is strongly positioned for mobile, because unlike some telecom providers that have legacy businesses that are being cannibalized by their growing mobile revenues, Vodafone is a newer business that lacks much of those legacy businesses. The company focuses on four areas for growth: increasing mobile data usage, emerging market mobile usage, enterprise and total communications, and new services.
Increasing Mobile Data Usage
-European smartphone penetration increased from 10% to 19% to 27% for 2010, 2011, and 2012 respectively.
-The percentage of the European network with 3G or better increased from 66% to 82% between 2011 and 2012, with the goal of 99% by early 2015.
-Revenue from data usage has grown at more than a 20% annualized rate over the last three years, and the number of data users on the network has doubled in the last two years.
Emerging Markets
-Vodafone management expects the world to have 1.5 billion more mobile phone users four years from now, according to the most recent annual report.
-Vodafone’s revenues from emerging markets are growing at a low double digit annualized pace.
-As the latest annual report describes, in areas that don’t have widespread internet infrastructure, many users have experienced the internet for the first time on a mobile device rather than a fixed device. As mobile data becomes more and more commonplace around the world, Vodafone and other companies have the opportunity to provide more and more mobile data coverage for developing markets where people can become accustomed to mobile internet usage early.
-Although Vodafone’s largest national customer base is in India, this region is not as proportionally profitable as their operations in mature markets. If they can keep and grow a strong customer base and become more profitable over time, the growth potential is meaningful.
Enterprise and Total Communications
-Vodafone’s business customers increased from 26 million to 30.3 million over the last two years.
-The company offers integrated wireless and fixed services to provide whole communication packages.
-Companies continue to require more mobile data usage and assurance of data security.
New Services
-Vodafone has several newer areas of potentially significant revenue, including machine-to-machine communication and mobile payments.
-The number of machine to machine (M2M) connections doubled over the last two years.
-The number of customers using Vodafone’s financial services for paying with their phone doubled over the last two years.
-An increasing number of software apps were paid on Vodafone bills over the last year.
So overall, while the industry is highly competitive, the whole pie is growing. A diversified investment such as Vodafone can provide focus on wireless communications along with the breadth of geography.
Risks
Vodafone must continually invest capital to keep its communication system up to par with competitors. Many aspects of the business are a commodity; people want affordable and fast data packages, since it’s just the middle-man between customers and the data they want to consume. Differentiation comes from having solid and growing infrastructure, from offering the right mix of data packages and phone contracts, and from meeting business data/voice needs. There is indeed at least a limited economic moat, as spectrum is limited, and capital expenditures are enormous. However, Vodafone faces considerable competition in all markets it operates in.Vodafone faces risks of European economic weakness, especially in Spain and Italy, regulatory/tax risks in India, and has global currency risks due to the global scale of its operations.
Conclusion and Valuation
Telecommunications companies typically pay larger than average dividends with their reliable infrastructure businesses. Vodafone has tailwinds from increasing mobile data usage around the world, although the stock price has been flat for the last two years. The company has divested certain interests in non-core businesses and has improved the balance sheet, while continuing to grow the dividend and also while paying a special dividend and buying back a considerable number of shares at reasonable prices.Based on the dividend discount model, using a 10% discount rate and 6% long term dividend growth, I calculate that the company could be fairly valued up to $40/share for the ADR. However, with widespread economic weakness, a margin of safety is warranted. At the current price of under $28/share for the ADR, I find the stock to be at a good value. With only 4% long term dividend growth and using a 10% discount rate, this price would be justified.
Full Disclosure: As of this writing, I have no position in any stocks mentioned.
T-Mobile USA to buy, swap spectrum with Verizon - AP - msnbc.com
NEW YORK — Verizon Wireless on Monday said that it has agreed to sell some wireless spectrum rights to T-Mobile USA and swap others, in a continuing quest to get regulators to approve a bigger spectrum deal it has worked out with a consortium of cable companies and another wireless carrier.
The deal with T-Mobile USA would improve the ability of both companies to offer fast wireless data services, Verizon said. T-Mobile, the fourth-largest U.S. wireless companies, is particularly starved for spectrum compared to its larger competitors, and regulators are likely to favor a deal that would improve its position.
Neither T-Mobile nor Verizon said what T-Mobile would pay Verizon for the spectrum.
The Verizon-T-Mobile deal is contingent on Verizon getting government approval for three deals to buy spectrum from cable companies and Leap Wireless for a total of about $4 billion. Those deals were struck in November and December, but have met resistance from public-interest groups who say the cellphone company, already the nation's largest, doesn't need more spectrum and shouldn't be cozying up to competitors such as the cable companies.
To get the three earlier deals through, Verizon has already offered to auction other airwaves it isn't using.
Cellphone companies need spectrum rights, or slots on the airwaves, to do business much like radio stations do. With the growth of wireless data use, cellphone companies have a newfound need for more spectrum. The amount of spectrum they have available in any area determines the maximum download speeds they can offer.
T-Mobile, which is a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG of Germany, said the Verizon deal encompasses spectrum in 218 areas, and would improve its spectrum position in 15 of the top 25 markets in the U.S., notably Philadelphia, Washington, Detroit and Seattle.
T-Mobile hopes to put the spectrum to use as early as next year, if the Federal Communications Commission approves the deal this summer.
"This is good for T-Mobile and good for consumers because it will enable T-Mobile to compete even more vigorously with other wireless carriers," T-Mobile USA CEO Philipp Humm said, in a statement.
Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. of New York and Vodafone Group PLC of Britain.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Vodafone to finally fulfil pebble blue Samsung Galaxy S3 pre-orders - Techradar.com
Vodafone UK has finally gotten its hands on the the pebble blue iteration of the Samsung Galaxy S3 handset customers had hoped to receive almost a month ago.
Eager fans who pre-ordered the handset in the unorthodox shade had expected to take ownership of the device on the official May 30 UK launch date.
However, a production error, which caused Samsung to ditch 600,000 cases caused delays in bringing the 16GB and 32GB pebble blue iterations to the UK.
Singin' the pebble blues
Pocket-Lint reports that Vodafone, who contacted customers last month to let them know of the delays, now has the handsets in stock and can start fulfilling those pre-orders.
Initial estimates for the delays were anything between 2-4 weeks, so this fits right within that timeframe.
Despite the long wait for some customers to grab the 4.8-inch, Android Ice Cream Sandwich handset, sales are expected to reach 10m in July.
Via: Pocket-Lint
No comments:
Post a Comment