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Nokia and Motorola Ready to Rumble in Emerging Markets
With mobile phone shipments expected to slow next year, Nokia and Motorola are set to slug it out in emerging markets with low-cost, ultraslim phones. Nokia on Tuesday forecast 10% global unit sales growth for cell phones in 2007, about half the rate of this year’s growth. About 970 million cell phones will be sold in 2006, Nokia estimates. Research firm Gartner says cell phone unit sales rose 21.5% worldwide in the third quarter. Cell phone demand next year ...
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AMD takes new road to PCs for developing countries
Advanced Micro Devices is changing both its products and business model in its plans to address low cost PCs for developing countries. The moves are part of a new direction in the wake of cancelling earlier this month its Personal Internet Communicator (PIC), a low cost PC in a sealed case aimed broadly at developing countries. AMD plans to roll out to systems makers in the next two months multiple low cost PC reference designs based on its Geode processor and tailored to specific mar...
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South Africa: No Second-Guessing Value of Informal Job Creation
The informal sector -- officially defined as businesses that are not registered in any way -- currently accounts for some 2,9-million jobs. Official statistics on the size of its contribution to total employment have fluctuated wildly over the past decade, from 11% in 1996 to a peak of 29% in 2001, then down to 19% in 2004 before climbing to 23% this year. THE government appears to be changing its attitude to the so-called second economy. Speaking earlier this year about t...
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Bharti AirTel, Wal-Mart Sign Tie-Up Deal
Indian telecommunications company Bharti Airtel has signed a tie-up deal with Wal-Mart to open a chain of retail stores across the country, Sunil B. Mittal, Bharti Airtel’s chief executive officer, said Monday. Mittal declined to divulge the financial details of the deal, but said it would be a huge investment involving hundreds of stores in India. It is going to be a large investment. There will be stores across the country. We are going to be a big player in ...
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Apax Partners to Invest in India
Apax is looking for long-term investment and buyout opportunities in the fast-growing technology, telecom, retail and consumer, media, healthcare and financial services sectors. It also has several companies in its portfolio that may interest Indian firms as they scout for foreign assets to expand their reach and size. Indian entrepreneurs’ increasing appetite for foreign companies is drawing private equity firms with saleable companies in their portfolio to set up shop in India. London-base...
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GrameenPhone: A Solution to Rural Connectivity
But there was a twist: while the company would have direct subscribers like regular cellular companies, local entrepreneurs in villages would buy phones, rent them out ? with airtime ? to neighbours and friends who wanted to make calls. Iqbal Quadir found his exposure to Wall Street fascinating. One particular phenomenon caught his eye: People were buying unglamorous companies cheap, investing in them and selling them high. The process helped the companies, the consumers and made these investors...
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Internet Extends Reach of Bangladeshi Villagers
Villages in one of the world’s poorest countries, long isolated by distance and deprivation, are getting their first Internet access, all connected over cellphones. And in the process, millions of people who have no land-line telephones, and often lack electricity and running water, in recent months have gained access to services considered basic in richer countries: weather reports, e-mail, even a doctor’s second opinion. Cellphones have become a new bridge across the digi...
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USAID and IFC Join Forces to Help Developing World Businesses
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding which opens the way for these organizations to jointly support a range of new grassroots business development projects in the developing world. Poverty alleviation has become a primary objective of development efforts, and this new collaboration will help to build and maintain democratic states that support improved and su...
- Source
- Yahoo! Finance
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