Annual news recap 1/5: mobile industry

Happy new year, everyone! Hopefully you’re ready to make 2019 your best year yet. But before we start looking forward, let’s take some last glances back to 2018. We saw everything from GDPR to feature phones to multi billion dollar deals. A famous Estonian poet has said that the one who doesn’t remember the past, lives without a future. Well, let’s refresh our memories and see what past year brought to us in mobile industry news.

• Telecoms: Google puts its own spin on unlimited data plan

• Mobile World Live: App Store rings in new year with record sales

• App Annie: Consumer Spend in App Stores Exceeded $86 Billion in 2017

• The Hindu: Aircel files for bankruptcy

• Computing: EU to levy three per cent turnover tax on Uber, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Airbnb and other US tech giants

• TechCrunch: Android beats iOS in smartphone loyalty, study finds

• Daily Mail: China’s WeChat app crosses one billion account mark

• PE Hub: Norway’s Telenor exits central Europe with $3.4 billion asset sale

• HBR: GDPR and the End of the Internet’s Grand Bargain

• Digital Doughnut: Digital trends B2C retailers must keep an eye on

• Medianama: India’s feature phone shipments doubled in Q1 2018, smartphone market stayed flat

• The Verge: Facebook and Google hit with $8.8 billion in lawsuits on day one of GDPR

• HBR: 18 of the Top 20 Tech Companies Are in the Western U.S. and Eastern China. Can Anywhere Else Catch Up?

• Medianama: JioPhone’s KaiOS becomes India’s 2nd most used beating Apple iOS

• PYMNTS: Samsung – Cash Back And Rewards Deliver Omnichannel Value To Con

• Tech In Asia: How Southeast Asia might be remade in China’s image

• NPR: Net Neutrality Has Been Rolled Back — But It’s Not Dead Yet

• TechCrunch: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

• Asian Correspondent: Concerns as Vietnam ponders new cybersecurity law

• Boingboing: Twitter stock drops 20.5% a day after Facebook suffers worst one-day drop in history

• Tech In Asia: A peek into the startup economies of Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia

• Mobile Ecosystem Forum: 10 digital marketing campaign stats you probably didn’t know

• Business Insider: $5 billion Slack just swallowed one of its biggest rivals as it rallies against Microsoft

• TechCrunch: Disney and Fox shareholders give acquisition the green light

• Medianama: Justice Srikrishna data protection draft bill is now public, highlights and what happens next

• Telecoms Tech News: Why mobile service providers are focusing on reinvention

• Apple Must: Apple hopes to open first retail stores in India ‘next year’

• Developing Telecoms: "Everywhere was an emerging market at one point"

• TechCrunch: Alibaba goes big on Russia with joint venture focused on gaming, shopping and more

• Business Insider: Adobe will acquire Marketo for $4.75 billion

• TechCrunch: A look at the Android Market (aka Google Play) on its 10th Anniversary

• App Annie: The Most Successful Companies of All Time on iOS

• TechCrunch: The largest software acquisition ever: IBM to buy Red Hat for $34B

• Kidscreen: Kids digital safety a major concern in Asia Pacific

• Digital News Asia: Malaysia to be the second country in SEA to introduce digital tax

• Business Insider: Mobile, digital video, and social drive HY 2018 digital ad growth

• CNN Business: SoftBank’s mobile IPO is the second biggest in history