This year’s Operations Transformation Forum was held in Munich, and Developing Telecoms was in attendance to find out about how operators in emerging markets are looking to improve the efficiency of their networks and businesses.

With over 5 billion mobile subscribers, the telecom industry has transformed our world. It connects us, entertains us, informs us and inspires us.

With the continued evolution of satellite technology, the world is becoming an increasingly smaller place. Areas that were once impossible to reach – cargo ships in the middle of the Pacific or airplanes flying at 35,000 feet – can now stay connected 24/7.

Huawei’s Q2 smartphone shipments increased by 41%, meaning that the Chinese device manufacturer has surpassed Apple to take second place in the global smartphone market with a share of 15.5%.

Better spectrum pricing policies are needed in developing countries to improve the economic and social welfare of the billions of people that remain unconnected to mobile broadband services, according to a new GSMA report.

A new report commissioned by the UN has found that broadband uptake in some of the least economically developed countries in the world has been slowed by a number of societal factors, despite good progress in the deployment of infrastructure.

78% of the world’s mobile subscribers are prepaid – equating to billions of price-sensitive transient consumers. In emerging markets, where prepaid penetration is even higher, mobile network operators (MNOs) are fighting head-to-head to win them over.

The GSMA is launching a global scheme for mobile money providers to offer safer, more transparent and more resilient financial services to millions of mobile money users around the world.

The GSMA has published a global report that examines whether mobile phones make people happy: it finds, with caveats, that they do.

The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) launched its joint ‘Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation’ (M4H) programme at this year’s Mobile World Congress.