Eurobites: Secondhand phones market continues to grow

More than 52% of Europeans say they are willing to buy a refurbished smartphone in the future, while more than 43% of them have already owned one, according to a new study from Vodafone, in partnership with Recommerce. Cost, of course, is a major factor, with 67% of those asked citing it as the main reason for buying secondhand, though environmental considerations also play their part – 39% identified them as a reason not to buy a new device. According to figures cited by Vodafone, buying a refurbished smartphone rather than a new one saves around 50kg of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) and removes the need to extract 164kg of raw materials.

Deutsche Telekom saw its full-year adjusted EBITDAal (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, after leases) rise 4% in organic terms in 2023, to €40.5 billion (US$43.9 billion), on net revenue up 0.6%, to €112 billion ($121.3 billion). Reported net profit for the year, at €17.8 billion ($19.3 billion), was more than double what it was in 2022, though there was a loss of €1 billion ($1.08 billion) in the fourth quarter driven by what the operator describes as "purely interest rate-based impairment losses" on its remaining shareholding in GD Towers. Customer growth continued in Europe, with 746,000 new mobile contract customers being added during the year, taking the base to 27.2 million as of year-end. At its T-Mobile US unit, total revenue was down 4.1%, to €18.98 billion ($20.57 billion), though EBITDAal climbed 3.1%, to €6.52 billion ($7.06 billion).

Arcep, the French communications regulator, has begun collecting environmental-footprint data relating to devices and data centers. Data to be collected will include volumes of equipment sold in France, the hardware's greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of rare earths and precious metals used to be produce it.

UAE operator du has been collaborating with Huawei on 800G links between data centers to help cope with the rising demand for data and help improve the customer experience for users of 5G and broadband services. Huawei's 800G offering extends transmission distance by 20%, says the vendor.

The GSMA has partnered with three South African operators on two universal network APIs (application programming interfaces) to help combat fraud and digital identity theft in sectors including banking, finance, insurance and retail. Cell C, MTN and Telkom will now be able to implement number verification and SIM swap APIs. The move forms part of the GSMA Open Gateway initiative, a framework of network APIs developed in collaboration with mobile operators worldwide that is intended to provide developers with universal access to operator networks.

Italian towers company Inwit has received the seal of approval from the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) for its plan to reach net zero by 2040, in line with international climate change agreements. Inwit will reduce its emissions to zero by purchasing and producing electricity from renewable sources and investing in technology to make its energy consumption more efficient, as well as subjecting its supply chain to environmental scrutiny.