Business Insights

Samsung reclaimed the global smartphone market crown from its fierce rival Apple in the first quarter of 2024, during which the total volume of device shipments increased by 7.8%, according to IDC.  

As part of Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s historic state visit to the United States, on April 9, 2024, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, U.S.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Tuesday his country will invest 9.4 trillion won ($6.94 billion) in artificial intelligence by 2027 as part of efforts to retain a leading global position in cutting-edge semiconductor chips.

Google has announced a $1billion investment to expand its Central Pacific Connect Initiative, which includes delivering two new subsea cables, Proa and Taihei.

The Cables

A new study from Juniper Research, the foremost experts in telecommunications markets, found that the global number of travel eSIM users will grow from 40 million in 2024 to over 215 million by 2028.

Microsoft AI, the newly launched Microsoft organisation that is tasked with helping the company advance its consumer AI products has announced it is opening an AI hub in London.

Virgin Media O2 Business has been selected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as a strategic partner to provide mobility data.  The anonymised data will be used to support UK Government work at national and local levels, providing insights that reveal population dynamics, travel patterns, and other movement trends.

Telefónica Tech has launched its global vulnerability management service into a solution that manages the entire attack surface of companies to anticipate threats and prevent attacks.

The UK and US have signed a landmark deal to work together to test advanced AI.

The agreement, which was signed on Monday, will see both countries work together to develop “robust” methods for evaluating the safety of AI tools and its systems.

The start of 2024 brought with it a slew of new subsea cable launches, and the end of 2023 closed in a similar fashion.

 Omdia’s latest Competitive Landscape Tool report reveals a downturn in the semiconductor industry, with revenue down 9% from $5

Hello, I’m Dafne Cerdán and I am the Head of Marketing and Social Media at Weaver Labs, a Telecoms-software company building a blockchain-based network management tool to open up access to connectivity. I have experience working with a range of brands, including both start-ups and established companies.

UKTIN member company, Finchetto, has been awarded £1m to develop the world’s first fully optical switch for telecoms networks.

A new digital infrastructure framework that fosters investment, innovation, and a harmonized digital market must be a priority in the next EU mandate

• Strategic multi-year partnership valued at up to $500 million over duration, deepening long-standing cooperation between the two companies.
• Enabling Intelsat to expand integration of LEO into its GEO assets to deliver unparalleled customer solutions.
• Leveraging

Regular analysis by connectivity experts FarrPoint evaluates connectivity preparedness across the four UK nations

Actions for industry, academia and policy makers

As a part of UKTIN’s Optical-themed month, we spoke to Francesco Poletti, an academic professor at the University of Southampton, where he co-founded a start-up called Lumenisity. 
 

Various efforts in the US from both sides of the political aisle to free up more mobile spectrum have gone down well in some quarters, but not so well in others.

And the picture remains gloomy into 2024.

New figures from Dell'Oro show a 5% year-on-year slide in the around US$100 billion market, a worse performance than it had expected, driven amongst other things by a slowdown in 5G and home broadband investments, as well as macroeconomic trends and the remains of a post-Covid hangover.

 AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (“AST SpaceMobile”) (NASDAQ:

A study by Juniper Research, the foremost experts in telecommunications, has found that the total number of OTT (Over the Top) messages will increase from 120 billion in 2023 to over 175 billion in 2025; a substantial growth of over 70% in two y

Hello, I’m Richard Auld and I am a Director at SICOM, a network consultancy business that specialises in optical fibre solutions and infrastructure. Using “dark fibre”—a fibre that has not been lit and is private to the customer—we connect buildings. 

The LLM generative AI chatbot can engage in human-like interactions with customers and handle more sophisticated customer requests.