LG Electronics announced the launch of the LG-U900, the world’s first commercially available UMTS (WCDMA) DVB-H phone, at a ceremony in Rome, Italy. The LG-U900 will be available early May through Hutchison, a leading global telecommunications services provider, in time for the 2006 World Cup.

Hutchison Italy, the country’s largest 3G telecommunications provider, has exclusive DVB-H broadcasting rights for the 2006 World Cup. The company will provide video footage of all World Cup matches beginning June 6, through the Hutchison’s service channels, �La3’.

Hutchison plans to offer the LG UMTS (WCDMA) DVB-H phone to customers world-wide, after initially establishi ng a base in Italy.

Mr. Mun-Hwa Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company, said: “We are so proud that LG is supplying the world’s first commercially available UMTS (WCDMA) DVB-H phone through Hutchison Italy. LG has already proven its unrivalled mobile multimedia technology in 3G markets by introducing a seri es of first-of-their-kind models including SDMB and TDMB handsets. LG will continue to introduce advanced te chnology that is second-to-none in the mobile TV industry.”

Mr. Vincenzo Novari, the CEO of Hutchison Italia said at the ceremony, “With support from LG Electronics, our company will strengthen its leadership in the 3G mobile communication market.”

LG’s new LG-U900 DVB-H handset features a 2.2-inch �wide-swing’ screen for mobile TV viewing. Its premium digital broadcasting functions include ESG (Electronics Service Guide) and CAS (Conditional Access System).

These functions shall support enhanced business models for mobile and broadcasting operators. Users can watch TV for up to three hours because of the phone’s long battery life. The LG-U900 is also equipped with a 1.3 mega-pixel & VGA digital camera, an internal memory capacity of 58MB.

The UMTS (WCDMA) DVB-H technology evolved from DVB-T, European terrestrial digital broadcast technology, becoming the European mobile broadcast standard. It provides high-speed data transmission, a variety of channels, a high-resolution screen and strong mobile broadcasting.

LG produces handsets using all available mobile broadcast technologies including DVB-H, DMB and MediaFLO. I n January 2006, LG became the first company to develop and introduce 3G UMTS (WCDMA) DVB-H, CDMA MediaFLO an d DMB phones. LG introduced the world’s first 3G UMTS (WCDMA) TDMB phone, the LG-V9000, in September 2005.

According to Strategy Analytics, a predominant worldwide handset market analysis company, mobile TV phones w ill reach 8 million units globally by the end of 2006 and the mobile TV market is expected to grow to 120 million subscribers by 2010.

Vodafone has completed its ВЈ9bn sale of its operation in Japan. The giant cellco announced last month that it planned to flog its 97.68 per cent stake in Vodafone Japan to Softbank Corporation.

Now that the deal has been done and dusted Vodafone plans to return around ВЈ6bn to shareholders later this summer.

In a statement Voda chief exec Arun Sarin said: “I am pleased to announce the completion of the sale of Vodafone Japan to SoftBank. We maintain a strong relationship with SoftBank and we look forward to continuing to benefit from insights in the important Japanese mobile market.”

Over 16.7m ‘smart mobile devices’ were shipped worldwide in the first quarter of 2006, up 55 per cent on the same period a year ago. According to research from Canalys, the Asia-Pacific region has now overtaken Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in sales of smart mobile devices. Asia-Pacific represented 46 per cent of all shipments during Q1 2006, compared to 39 per cent for EMEA and 15 per cent for the Americas.

Canalys defines smart mobile devices as “handhelds, wireless handhelds and smartphones.”

EMEA shipments of smart mobile devices rose 25 per cent year-on-year over the quarter. However, sales in Western Europe declined 10 per cent versus the same three-month period in 2005.

Despite delays in the release of its enterprise-focused E-series smartphones, Nokia not only retained its comfortable lead in the EMEA smart mobile device market in the first quarter, but increased its market share to 76 per cent from 67 per cent a year ago. Both Nokia and second-placed RIM increased their respective device shipments above the market average of 25 per cent.

Qtek posted the highest growth among the top five smart mobile device manufacturers. Its 211 per cent rise took it above HP and Palm for the first time to make it the leading Windows Mobile vendor in EMEA by the end of the quarter.

Globally, despite a sequential fall in quarterly smart mobile shipments, leader Nokia’s year-on-year growth of 60 per cent meant the Finnish firm increased its market share slightly, helped by demand for popular multimedia models such as the N70.

RIM, the company behind the highly popular BlackBerry device, made substantial gains to strengthen its position in second place, growing at 85 per cent and overtaking Palm both globally and in the US market for the first time.

During the quarter Palm posted slight growth and Canalys estimates that Treo smartphone shipments were up 44 per cent compared to a year ago. However, the firm said the Treo has yet to gain traction outside the US and, more worryingly, the firm experienced a sharp decline in handheld sales.

Globally, shipments of handhelds were down, with the top four players in this field (Palm, HP, Dell and Acer) all seeing year-on-year falls, according to Canalys.

This concurs with IDC’s latest report on the world handheld device market – published on the same day as Canalys data was released – which also shows a decline in handheld shipments.

According to IDC’s figures, the total number of handheld devices shipped during the first quarter of 2006 was down 22.3 per cent.