January 16th, 2012 — Issue 30 November/December 2011
At the start of December, Arab Advisors Group held its inaugural Smart Handheld Summit in Dubai. The event drew some of the most influential players in the regional telecom arena, and while the opportunity raised by increased computing power on mobile devices is widely acknowledged, how to monetise such opportunities remains less certain
Arab Advisors hosted the Smart Handheld Summit, which considered ways in which Arab operators could benefit from the changing mobile data ecosystem
January 11th, 2012 — Issue 30 November/December 2011
2011 was a challenging year for telcosacross the MEA , not least as a result of the socio-political situation that persisted throughout much of the year, causing heightened market uncertainty and a suspension of any large-scale M&A activity. Thus entrants on Comm.’s annual list of most effective service provider CEOs have had to be particularly adept at driving efficiencies and managing rapidly changing environments
January 5th, 2012 — Issue 30 November/December 2011
Telecom service providers in Sudan have had to overcome more than the usual operational challenges in a market, and earlier this year an additional one was placed in their path by the separation of what had previously been the Republic of Sudan into two countries. Comm. speaks to the CEO leading operator Zain Sudan about the state of play in both countries – the Republic of Sudan and South Sudan – and the impact the separation is set to have on the telecom business
Zain Sudan MD Elfatih Erwa believes the operator already enjoys distinct advantages in the South, having established a strong brand and built out the most extensive network
December 31st, 2011 — Issue 30 November/December 2011
The Ericsson Media Summit held in Beirut at the end of November brought together telecom professionals and students from around the Middle East region for a discussion of the ICT drivers at play. Ericsson emphasised the need for private and public sectors to become fully aware of the significant gains the digital dividend offers and to take steps towards developing the necessary enabling environment
Anders Lindblad, Ericsson’s president of Region Middle East, offers insights on the drivers of the telecom sector in the Middle East
December 10th, 2011 — Issue 30 November/December 2011
In the telecom industry many AxPU metrics have been proposed and/or used to assess the business performance of a given telecom market and/or operator. However ARPU (average revenue per user) remains the most strategically regarded and widely accepted metric. It is commonly calculated by dividing aggregated revenues by the average number of subscribers who theoretically generated those revenues during a predefined time period – typically a month as adopted by most telecom carriers. More interestingly, focused ARPU figures are calculated for specific services in a bid to identify the largest sources of revenue generation, as they are calculated according to diverse factors such as geographic location, user age, occupation, and income.
Jamoussi believes it is time to contest assumptions such as low-ARPU markets are unprofitable, while high-ARPU ones are
India’s Reliance Communications (RCom) is reported to have barred new entrant Etisalat DB from accessing its telecom towers, alleging that Etisalat DB has not paid its leasing fees on time. "Despite repeated reminders, payments have been inordinately delayed by EDB (Etisalat DB) without any reasonable cause," an RCom spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires. A spokesperson [...]
Ericsson today warned of short-term challenges as operators remained cautious with their spending plans, as a result of factors including macro-economic and political uncertainty. The world’s leading telecom infrastructure vendor is already seeing the effects of this, with its fourth quarter profit falling by 66 per cent as spend shifted to lower margin projects. Net [...]
Batelco Group announced that it is investing JD50 million (US$70.47 million) to obtain a 3G licence in Jordan, via Umniah, its 96 per cent-owned subsidiary. Umniah has obtained a 3G licence pursuant to paying JD50 million to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) and will further invest towards infrastructure and network expenses related to the roll [...]
Research In Motion’s (RIM) two co-CEOs – Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie – resigned from their positions with immediate effect over the weekend, appearing to bow to shareholder pressure for a change in leadership at the struggling BlackBerry-maker. Lazaridis and Balsillie – who were also co-chairmen – are to be succeeded by Thorsten Heins, who [...]
Google provided an update on its mobile performance as part of its Q4 2011 results release, stating that cumulatively there have been 250 million Android device activations – up 50 million since an announcement made in November 2011. The company reiterated that 700,000 Android activations are made every day, although during the peak Christmas holiday [...]
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