In another sign that smartphone sales may be leveling off, Samsung said today that profits for its mobile device unit were down more than 37% versus last year. Samsung’s profits have been falling for 5 quarters now, but this report is a clear indication that the Galaxy S6 did not do as well as Samsung and many analysts thought it could.
Tower company SBA Communications also reported earnings today. The company built 117 new towers during the second quarter. Despite SBA’s building boom, recruiters here in the U.S. say overall demand for tower climbers is still soft. The same is not true for technicians who work on small cells and distributed antenna systems. There is a strong demand for people with urban deployment experience. Recruiters have been filling dozens of job openings for Mobilitie — that’s the California company that is widely expected to partner with Sprint and Softbank to deploy small cells.