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Sprint drops out of race

The company has withdrawn its bid for T-Mobile.

Paul Booth
By Paul Booth
Johannesburg, 11 Aug 2014

The international ICT space last week was dominated by the news of Sprint's (Softbank's) withdrawal of its bid for T-Mobile, and Apple and Samsung agreeing to settle all their non-US patent issues.

At home, MTN's interim results took much of the local ICT media space during a very quiet week.

Key local news

* Mixed Q1 numbers from Mix Telematics, with revenue up 7% but profit down 39%.
* Satisfactory interim numbers from MTN Group, with revenue up 10.7% and profit up 5.4%.
* Mediocre interim figures from MTN SA, with revenue down 7% and EBITDA down 7.5%.
* A negative trading update from Pinnacle Holdings.
* The appointments of Alan Dickson as CEO of Reunert; and Emillian Popa as CEO of Groupon SA.
* The resignation of Jacques Schindeh"utte, CFO of Telkom SA (was under suspension).
* The retirement of David Rawlinson, CEO of Reunert.

Key African news

* A quarterly loss from Global Telecom (Egypt), with revenue also down.
* IHS Holding acquired 2 136 towers from Etisalat Nigeria.
* The appointments of Shaun Barendsen as Solution & Product Group director of HDS EEMEA; and Rassie Jacobs as GM and sales director of HDS sub-Saharan Africa.

Key international news

Apple and Samsung have agreed to drop patent lawsuits outside of the USA.

* Facebook acquired PrivateCore, an Internet security company.
* Gemalto bought SafeNet, a data and software protection company, for $890 million.
* Google purchased Emu, a provider of a service that offers 'texting with a built-in assistant'.
* Google (YouTube) acquired Directr, a mobile video app used by small businesses to create marketing videos.
* Quantum bought Symform's cloud storage services platform and development team.
* Apple and Samsung have agreed to drop patent lawsuits outside of the US.
* NetScout Systems has filed a lawsuit against Gartner alleging unfair and deceptive trade practices and corporate defamation.
* Sprint (Softbank) has dropped its bid to buy T-Mobile US.
* Excellent quarterly results from Arista Networks and InterDigital.
* Very good quarterly figures from Qualys.
* Good quarterly numbers from Cognizant Technology Solutions, Gartner, GCI, Nvidia, Sypris Solutions (back in the black) and Zebra Technologies.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Ansys, Atmel, Avnet, CDI, Cincinnati Bell, Diebold (back in the black), Diodes, ePlus, Sapient, SK Telecom, SMIC, Sykes Enterprises, Symantec and T-Mobile US.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Acer (but back in the black), Activision, CSC, Engility, Intelsat (but back in the black), SunEdison Semiconductor (but back in the black) and Windstream Communications.
* Mixed quarterly figures from AOL, with revenue up but profit down; Cablevision Systems, with revenue up but profit down; CenturyLink, with revenue up but profit down; Himax Technologies, with revenue down but profit up; j2 Global, with revenue up but profit down; Motorola Solutions, with revenue down but profit up; and Teradata, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from Acxiom, Earthlink Holdings, Emulex, FireEye, Guidance Software, Interactive Intelligence, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Liberty Global, Sabre, Silicon Graphics, Stratasys, Take-Two Interactive Software, Tata Communications and Zynga.
* The appointments of Marcelo Claure as CEO of Sprint; Stephen Hooley as chairman of DST Systems (already CEO); and Dev Ittycheria as president and CEO of MongoDB.
* The resignations of Henrique Granadeiro, CEO of Portugal Telecom; Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint; and Max Schireson, CEO of MongoDB (stays on as a vice-chairman).
* A good IPO on the NYSE by Israeli Mobileye, a provider of software for advanced driver assistance systems.

Research results and predictions

EMEA/Africa:
* Most sub-Saharan countries, including Nigeria and SA, will not achieve the ITU-mandated 2015 deadline to switch off their analogue terrestrial TV signals, according to Ovum.

Worldwide:
* Worldwide shipments of PCs reached 123.9 million in Q2, up 14% from last year; whereas tablet shipments declined 5% to 48.4 million units, according to Canalys Research.
* Worldwide spending is now expected to increase this year by 4.1%, up a little from its previous forecast, according to IDC.

Stock market changes

* JSE All share index: Down 0.5%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.4%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.4%
* S&P 500: Up 0.3%
* FTSE 100: Down 1.7%
* Top SA share movements: Digicore (-10.8%), Ellies (-18.7%), FoneWorx (-9.1%), Gijima (-15%), Huge Group (+6.9%), Morvest (-7.7%), Pinnacle (-30.2%) and Telkom SA (+7.5%)

Look out for

International:
* The outcome of Telefonica's EUR6.7 billion bid for Vivendi's Brazilian telecommunications business.
* The buyout of Tibco Software by a private equity firm.

Africa:
* A listing in Egypt by Etisalat's Egyptian subsidiary, Etisalat Misr.

South Africa:
* MTN acquiring a 20-year mobile licence in Syria.

Final word

Each year, Gartner publishes the results of its CEO survey. The following are a few points of note from this year's survey, which has yet to be published.

Regarding the top five technology investments that will be the most important areas for business improvement over the next five years, digital marketing took the top spot (38%), followed by e-commerce (34%), customer experience management (34%) and business analytics (32%).

Also of significance were cloud business (27%), big data and data science (24%), enterprise mobility (23%), supply chain and traceability (22%), m-commerce (20%), product cost analytics (20%) and enhanced business reporting (20%).

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