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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clean who wrote (2529)	10/21/1999 7:32:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 34857

Yeah, TEF is one approach. I'd stay away from DT - Mannesmann is a much nimbler German player with a major position in Italy. Sonera has a huge stake in Turkcell and some stakes in Voicestream and Powertel, bought at bargain prices. There's no supposition here about the growth - Italy is already well ahead of US penetration rates and the subscriber growth in England and Spain is tremendous. Slacker - let's talk about US mobile market and other natural disasters. It's not the biggest market around - not by a long shot. European Union is a far bigger source of sales... and had almost three times higher mobile subscriber growth in 1998. The situation is only getting more pronounced. US press can spin the relevance of American mobile phone market by comparing it to Italy or Germany - but of course the real comparison is EU, not any individual EU country. USA was supposed to hit the sweet spot this quarter. That's what is happening in Spain, England and Asian markets - the mobile phone market penetration hits 25% and the growth takes off. Well - that moment came and went in the American market last spring. Now, just look at the 3Q figures. Nextel and Sprint are showing declining subscriber growth. AT&T, BAM and other digital/analog hybrids are stuck at around 40%. On growth terms, this is simply the lamest mobile market after Russia right now. I'm sorry if that hurts the sensibilites of some SI lurkers. But the trend underlying these numbers is pretty clear. Now, compare that to Cellnet, Telefonica and other European operators in markets where the market penetration is almost identical - we are talking about 150-200% subscriber growth in their core markets. So we have EU, which is both a far larger market for mobile phones and has a much more robust subscriber growth. Both size and sizzle. In addition, many European operators have sizable stakes in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Latin America, all major growth engines of future. Where's a coherent international strategy for Sprint or Nextel? Or are they dependent on a market where the subscription growth is permanently stuck beneath Turkey and Poland? Tero