10Meters News Service

August 30, 2001 – Tele2, Sweden's second-largest mobile phone operator, is postponing the launch of its GPRS services for another month.

The company cited a lack of GPRS terminals as the reason for the delay in providing the "always-on" Internet telephony standard.

Telia, Tele2's biggest competitor, said it would launch GPRS on September 11. Sweden's third operator, Europolitan, already operates a GPRS network.

Motorola and Ericsson are currently selling GPRS handsets. Nokia, the world's largest phone producer, is holding out until the third quarter, but is optimistic that it will sell "millions of them" by the fourth quarter, driven by the holiday season.

In other mobile phone news, Nokia yesterday reported that global shipments of phones in the second quarter of 2001 fell for the first time in the company's history, declining by 8.4 percent to 89.76 million units from 97.98 million in the same period a year ago.

Nokia is still No. 1 in market share, although its slice has been trimmed to 34.8 percent, from 35.3 percent in the first quarter of this year. Motorola came in second with a 14.8 percent share, versus 13.2 percent last quarter.

Getting good news: Ericsson, which is back in the third slot after losing its ranking to Siemens last quarter. Its market share also climbed to 8.3 percent, from 6.8 percent.