PwC and Booz & Co merge

PwC and Booz & Co's merger, and the rumours that AT&T might be interested in Vodafone, were the highlights of the international ICT market last week.

At home, SecureData's disposal of SensePost, and Neotel's results going into the black for the first time were the main local stories.

* Good interim numbers from Neotel, with revenue up 21% and EBITDA in the black for the first time.
* A positive trading update from Sekunjalo Investments.
* SecureData made a R36 million disposal of SensePost, its independent information security assessment services subsidiary.
* AdaptIT has entered into a partnership with ABB's Ventyx, a provider of ERP solutions, which will enable the former to deliver solutions to clients in the energy and utilities sectors.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by SecureData.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by ISA.

* Satisfactory half-year numbers from Econet Wireless, with revenue up 11% and EBITDA up 8%.
* Mediocre nine-month figures from Maroc Telecom, with revenue down 4.7% and EBITDA down 1.1%.
* The appointment of Matthew Willsher as acting CEO of Etisalat Nigeria.
* The resignation of Steven Evans, CEO of Etisalat Nigeria.

SecureData made a R36 million disposal of SensePost.

* Accenture acquired PCO Innovation, a product life cycle management company.
* AMC Networks bought Liberty Global's Chellomedia content business for $1.04 billion.
* CSC purchased ServiceMesh, a cloud services management start-up.
* Ingram Micro acquired Shipwire, the cloud logistics and SCM SaaS provider.
* Ixia bought Net Optics, a provider of total application and network visibility solutions.
* NTT acquired an 80% stake in RagingWire Data Centers for $350 million.
* NTT bought Virtela Technology Services, a cloud networking provider, for $525 million.
* Overland Storage bought Tandberg Data, a provider of data storage and data protection solutions.
* Qualcomm purchased certain technology assets of Arteris, a provider of semiconductor IP and tools.
* RealNetworks acquired Muzicall, a mobile carrier service provider in Europe.
* PwC and Booz & Co merged, in a move that will create one of the world's largest management consultancy firms.
* Rockstar, the consortium that bought the Nortel patents for $4.5 billion, is suing several companies, including Google, HTC, Huawei and Samsung, for patent infringements.
* A UK court has found in favour of Nokia in a patent dispute with HTC.
* Dell has de-listed following its privatisation deal.
* Excellent half-year numbers from Softbank.
* Excellent quarterly results from Tableau Software.
* Very good quarterly figures from 3D Systems, Facebook (back in the black) and MediaTek.
* Good quarterly numbers from Amkor Technology, Belden (back in the black), China Telecom, Cirrus Logic, CommVault and UMC.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from ADP, Baidu, Comcast, Fiserv, JDSU (back in the black), Sharp (back in the black), SK Hynix, SK Telecom, Telenor and Telesat.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Arrow Electronics, Atmel, AU Optronics, BT Group, CACI International, CDI, Harte-Hanks, Intelsat (but back in the black), InterDigital and Seagate Technology.
* Mixed quarterly figures from American Tower, with revenue up but profit down; Apple, with revenue up but profit down; Bharti Airtel, with revenue up but profit down; Corning, with revenue up but profit down; CSC, with revenue down but profit up; Electronic Arts, with revenue down but profit up; Etisalat, with revenue up but profit down; Flextronics, with revenue up but profit down; Garmin, with revenue down but profit up; Harris, with revenue down but back in the black; Integrated Device Technology, with revenue down but back in the black; L3 Communications, with revenue down but profit up; Open Text, with revenue down but profit up; Plantronics, with revenue up but profit down; Qlogic, with revenue down but profit up; Riverbed Technology, with revenue up but profit well down; Ruckus Wireless, with revenue up but profit down; Sanmina, with revenue up but profit down; Sprint, with revenue down but profit up; Teradata, with revenue up but profit down; TE Connectivity, with revenue up but profit down; and Time Warner Cable, with revenue up but profit down.
* Very poor quarterly figures from Iron Mountain, although revenue up.
* Quarterly losses from Alcatel-Lucent, Bottomline Technologies, Diebold, Imation, LinkedIn, NII Holdings, Nokia, Pitney Bowes PMC-Sierra, Silicon Graphics, Sony and Yelp.
* The appointment of Jon Baksaas as chairman of GSMA.
* A planned IPO this week from Numericable, the French cable operator.

International:
* The $1.65 billion buyout by Vodafone of its minority stakeholders in India.
* A possible link-up to Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications by Orange and/or Vodafone.
* The outcome of a patent infringement case involving TransPerfect and MotionPoint, two rivals that provide the language translation technology and services utilised by many large organisations.
* A possible interest in Vodafone by AT&T.
Africa:
* Zain's entry into North Africa, probably via Libya.
South Africa:
* Further developments regarding SecureData and Telkom SA.

* The worldwide cloud-based security services market will reach $2.1 billion this year and rise to $3.1 billion in 2015, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide tablet shipments grew 37.6% in Q3, with Apple's market share diminishing slightly and Samsung's market share rising sharply, according to IDC. There were also significant market share gains by Acer and Lenovo.
* Worldwide server shipments in Q3 rose 1.2%, according to preliminary figures from Gartner.
* As of 2010, 90% of people worldwide were covered by a mobile phone signal, and in 2013, more than 3.4 billion people (almost half the world's population), own at least one mobile phone, according to the Worldwatch Institute.

* JSE All share index: Up 1% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Down 0.5%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.3%
* Top SA share movements: AdaptIT (+9.2%), Ansys (+8.6%), Datacentrix (+9.1%), Digicore (+9.4%), Jasco (+16.7%), Labat Africa (-18.7%), MICROmega (-10.8%), SecureData (+12.5%) and Sekunjalo (+10%)

According to Strategy Analytics, global shipments of smartphones grew 45% in Q3 this year to hit a record 251 million units, and accounted for 60% of all mobile phones that were shipped.

Global smartphone vendor shipments:

Global smartphone vendor market shares:

LG saw the largest growth, with 71.4%; while Apple had the least growth, with 25.7%, although the latter is likely to change with the advent of Apple's new iPhone 5S.