Subscribe
About

Qualcomm faces anti-trust probe

China's National Development and Reform Commission has not given a reason for its investigation.

Paul Booth
By Paul Booth
Johannesburg, 02 Dec 2013

As it was Thanksgiving Day in the US last Thursday, the international ICT market was very quiet, with BlackBerry's top management changes and China's anti-trust probe into Qualcomm being two of the leading news items.

At home, the local filing by Turkcell of its alleged case against MTN was the headline story of the week.

Key local news

Mixed interim numbers from Naspers, with revenue up 28.3% but profit down 26.5%; and Prescient, with revenue up 91.4% but profit down 66.3%.
* An interim loss by Ansys, with revenue down 36.7%.
* A full-year loss from Stella Vista, with revenue down 22%.
* A positive trading update from Huge Group.
* A negative trading update from ConvergeNet Holdings.
* Turkcell has brought its alleged 'MTN corruption case' to the courts in SA.
* Cell C has entered a deal with Mirage Telecoms that will result in the launch of a mobile virtual network enabler to create a platform for new entrants in the cellphone industry.
* TCS is going into business rescue.
* Renewed JSE cautionaries by Jasco and MICROmega Holdings.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by Sekunjalo Investments.

Key African news

* Vodacom made an additional investment (17.2%) in Vodacom Tanzania that raises its shareholding to 82.2%.
* The BT Group announced a new phase of investments into the rapidly growing economies, including Africa, in a bid to accelerate its expansion into high growth markets.
* Convergence Partners announced a $140 million fund for communications infrastructure development in Africa.

Key international news

Turkcell has brought its alleged 'MTN corruption case' to the courts in SA.

* Altice, an investment company, acquired Orange Dominicana (Dominican Republic) for EUR1.1 billion.
* Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm, bought Applied Systems, an insurance software provider, for $1.8 billion.
* Transform purchased Fujitsu Semiconductor's technology operations for saving energy in electronic products.
* Trimble acquired CSC (UK), a provider of construction software solutions.
* India will investigate Ericsson regarding its charges for its patents charges to Micromax, an Indian group.
* China has launched an anti-trust probe into Qualcomm.
* The Dutch Data Protection Authority said Google has violated its data protection laws.
* A privacy lawsuit against Apple has been dismissed.
* EMC and Pure Storage continue to accuse each other with new charges regarding potential patent infringements.
* BlackBerry has undertaken a senior management reshuffle that includes the departure of three senior executives, including the CFO and COO.
* OCZ Technology Group, an SSD maker, has received an offer from Toshiba to buy the company, in a planned bankruptcy proceeding.
* Vivendi will demerge its SFR telecommunications business interests into a separate entity.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Analog Devices, with revenue down but profit up; HP, with revenue down but back in the black; and QAD, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from Nuance Communications and Palo Alto Networks.
* A planned IPO on Nasdaq this week from Kofax, a provider of smart process applications software.
* An IPO filing from Globoforce, a provider of HR and workforce management software.

Look out for

International:
* The outcome of the auction for Serena Software by Silver Lake, the private equity firm.

Africa:
* The sale by Bharti Airtel of its towers across its African networks.

South Africa:
* The outcome of the talks being held between Telkom Mobile and both Cell C and MTN.
* Further developments regarding the possible Vodacom/Neotel merger.
* Developments regarding Net 1 UEPS and the latest court ruling over a recent government tender.

Research results and predictions

* Tablets will comprise 50% of the overall PC market shipments in 2014, with 285 million, a number set to grow to 396 million by 2017, according to Canalys.
* The Android-derived OS is expected to account for 32% of the PC market next year, according to Canalys.
* Global smartphone shipments will reach 1.24 billion in 2014, up 30% on this year, according to Digitimes Research.
* Worldwide smartphone shipments will exceed 1 billion this year, a 39.3% growth over 2012, according to IDC.
* Telecoms operators will generate $2 trillion in revenue this year, according to Infonetics.
* The local IT market is due to grow by 6.5%, although the total ICT market, ie, IT plus telecommunications services, is due to grow by only 3.6% in 2014, according to IDC's Q3 'Black Book'. A summary of the figures is shown below:

Stock market changes

* JSE All share index: Up 1.2%
* Nasdaq: Up 1.7% (highest-ever weekend close for over 13 years and through the 4 000 barrier)
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.1%

* Top SA share movements: ConvergeNet Holdings (+8.3%), Huge Group (+33.3%), Jasco (+12%), Labat Africa (-7.7%), Net 1 UEPS Technologies (-39.9%), Poynting Holdings (+26%), SecureData (+8.8%), Stella Vista (-50%) and TCS (+100%)

Final word

American Banker and Bank Technology News recently released their 10th annual FinTech100 rankings of the top global technology providers to the financial services industry. The list included (US-based, unless otherwise stated):

1: Fidelity National Information Services
2: Tata Consultancy Services (India)
3: Fiserv
4: NCR
5: Cognizant Technology Solutions
6: Diebold
7: SunGard
8: Infosys (India) 9: Nomura Research Institute (Japan)
10: Wincor Nixdorf (Germany)

This is my final column for 2013, although my 'review of the year' will appear next week. My column will resume on 13 January and will cover the intervening period.

A big thank you to all my readers for your support this year; I wish you well over the festive season and a great 2014.

Share