Dutch Company Threatened With Fines Over Retail Wi-Fi Tracking

The Dutch Personal Data Authority has threatened Bluetrace, a Netherlands-based company, with a fine if it does not change its practices to meet privacy regulations. The company provides devices to help retailers track store traffic by registering the MAC address on smartphones. Bluetrace Wi-Fi receivers track people in a store, as well as passers-by on the street and nearby residents, but the regulator said that it needs to differentiate between store visitors, who have given prior approval for the tracking, and others, who have not. The information collected must also be rendered anonymous and processed within 24 hours. Any other data collected on other people should be deleted. Bluetrace has six months to implement the changes and demonstrate that it is in compliance. It must also improve the information provided to store visitors. If it does not make the changes, the company faces fines of €5,000 (US $5625) per day, up to a maximum €100,000 (US $112,480).     Another major opportunity for the mobile telecom industry is mobile advertising, which relies on (among other things) information about consumer behavior gleaned in real time via public Wi-Fi. Operators can monetize this process by making deals with retailers and mobile advertising service providers that provide special access to the operator’s subscribers. Mobile advertising is a very fast-growing sector; however, this report from the Netherlands sounds a cautionary note. Operators and other entities involved should be aware of the potential not only for regulator sanctions but for alienating the public if the data gathering is perceived as violating privacy. A careful approach that involves above-board acknowledgment of the specifics of the tracking is highly advisable.

Tarifica is the global leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing. Covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe, Tarifica’s databases of mobile and fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance. 

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Apple Revenue Growth Slows to 2 Percent

Apple reported revenues for its fiscal first quarter (to December 2015) up just 2 percent year-over-year to US $75.9 billion. The sales were at the low end of its forecast of US $75.5–77.5 billion and include US $548 million from the company’s patent settlement with Samsung. Apple blamed the slower growth on the strong U.S. dollar, saying revenues would have risen 8 percent at constant exchange rates. At constant rates, revenues were up 18 percent in Europe and 17 percent in greater China, while falling 1 percent in the Americas and 4 percent in Japan. The company’s net profit rose to US $18.4 billion or US $3.28 per share, from US $18.0 billion or US $3.06 per share a year earlier, and Apple maintained its quarterly dividend at 52 cents a share. While Apple said it set a new record for iPhone sales in the quarter (the iPhone 6s was launched in September) unit sales of the smartphone were unchanged year-over-year at 74.78 million and iPhone revenues were up just 1 percent compared to the same quarter a year earlier. iPad sales fell 25 percent year-over-year to 16.12 million, and sales of Mac computers were down 3 percent over the same period to 5.31 million units. Apple highlighted the growing contribution from its services business, which grew revenues by 15.5 percent year-on-year to US $5.5 billion in the quarter. Apple said it recently passed the milestone of an installed base of 1 billion devices accessing its services, including iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple TV, iPod touch and Apple Watch. For fiscal Q2, Apple forecast a sharp slowdown in sales to US $50–53 billion and a gross margin of 39.0–39.5 percent compared to 40.1 percent in Q1. Questions of the exchange rate aside, these results make it clear that Apple’s growth, particularly of its flagship iPhone, is slowing. Not only that, but there is no upturn in sight—the U.S. technology giant predicts a continuation of the trend, with an actual decline in revenue impending. This situation should come as no genuine surprise; growth, and especially steep growth, cannot go on forever, and Apple’s slowdown can be considered as a sign of maturity. And it is not just Apple that has matured; the global smartphone market has. With iPhones in the hands of a huge range of users in developed and developing countries, saturation has set in. What is more, as manufacturers of budget devices (especially in China) include more and more advanced features and capabilities in their low- to medium-priced smartphones, they are closing the gap with Apple’s high-priced phone. And finally, Apple has not, to date, expanded into the very fast-growing new sector of connected cars and other IoT applications.

Tarifica is the global leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing. Covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe, Tarifica’s databases of mobile, fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance.

Microsoft to Launch Microsoft WiFi

U.S.-based software and technology giant Microsoft has announced that it is working on a new Wi-Fi service, called Microsoft WiFi, to replace Skype Wi-Fi. Microsoft said the service will provide access to 10 million hotspots worldwide. Currently Skype Wi-Fi has 2 million hotspots. Microsoft made the announcement via microsoftwifi.com, which stated that the new service will be available for users of Skype Wi-Fi, users of Microsoft Office 365 for Enterprise, and people who have received a special Wi-Fi offering from Microsoft. No financial details of the planned service—which will be available via Windows Phone, Mac, Android and iOS—were disclosed. While it is not yet clear when Microsoft WiFi will launch, it seems that when it does, a large step will have been taken in the direction of making public Wi-Fi connections universally accessible. Ten million hotspots in some 130 countries is no doubt an impressive number, and it marks a quintupling of the number now available to Skype subscribers (Microsoft owns Skype, which it acquired in 2011). We have written recently about the proliferation of services that rely partially or wholly on Wi-Fi hotspots—usually free ones—as an auxiliary or even a replacement for traditional cellular data (and, by extension, voice and text messaging if over-IP solutions are used). The success of such challenges to the mobile operators’ connectivity depends, of course, on the number and density of Wi-Fi hotspots available in public places both indoors and outdoors. Until now, Wi-Fi hotspots have not been ubiquitous enough to make these services game changers. However, if a giant entity like Microsoft can really spread hotspots across the globe densely enough, a web of connectivity operating outside the MNOs’ networks can come into existence. Of course, while this will be public Wi-Fi, it will not be free public Wi-Fi; Microsoft will be charging for the access, so in order for it to position itself as a significant competitor to cellular service, it will have to be priced appropriately.

Tarifica has been the leading provider of telecom pricing information for close to four decades. It maintains the most robust, in-depth and up-to-date pricing database in the industry, which includes mobile and fixed line rates from over 400 operators in 85 countries, as well as historical data going back to 1997. Tarifica also produces reports, surveys, publications and custom analyses. Its clients include operators, regulators, enterprises and consultants in every region of the globe.