Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten acquired Viber for US$900 million, just days after the CEO of the mobile messaging player denied it was in acquisition talks.

Rakuten said the deal is aimed at strengthening its global platform by bringing Viber’s user base to its e-commerce and digital content services.

Viber has 280 million global registered users in nearly 200 countries and more than 100 million monthly active users. It is also quickly growing its user base, particularly in emerging markets.

Asia has seen the rise of a number of messaging apps, most notably WeChat in China, Line in Japan and KakaoTalk in South Korea. All of these messaging services have user bases that stretch into the hundreds of millions but which are predominantly located in particular regions.

Viber, like WhatsApp, has a more global user base, which would allow Rakuten to move into new markets, supporting its ambitions to become the biggest Internet services company globally.

News of the deal follows Talmon Marco, the CEO of Viber, denying that the company was in talks to be acquired by an Asian company earlier this week.

According to Rakuten, 11.4 per cent of Viber is owned by the Marco family.

Last year was the first in which Viber generated revenue, which stood at US$1.52 million. The company made a net loss of US$29.51 million in 2013, compared with US$14.73 million loss in 2012.

Viber recently boosted its efforts to generate revenue by introducing functionality that enables users to make low-cost calls to any mobile or landline phone number. Viber Out brings Viber into more direct competition with Skype, which also supports voice calls to “traditional” phone numbers.

Its first attempt to monetise its messaging app was the introduction of its Sticker Market, which it launched in October last year.

Lenovo talked up strong progress in its smartphone business, as it also provided further details on its planned acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google.

According to the Financial Times, Lenovo has said it will take “between three and five quarters” to turn the loss-making Motorola around.

In a statement, Lenovo said that it “believes the acquisition of such an iconic brand, innovative product portfolio and incredibly talented global team will immediately make Lenovo a truly global smartphone player in the fast-growing mobile space”.

Motorola said it will re-introduce the Motorola brand back into China, “where we expect Chinese customers will again embrace Motorola”, and will also offer Motorola products to customers in emerging markets.

While the combination of Lenovo and Motorola is likely to lead to job cuts due to the overlap in many areas of the businesses, there has already been one high-profile departure revealed. Dennis Woodside, CEO of Motorola Mobility, is set to join online storage company Dropbox as its COO.

Lenovo said that it is “already mapping integration to realise real and substantial synergies from day one”. It also expects to “achieve significant material savings from lower material costs, and global scaling”.

Ahead of the Motorola deal, the company said that for the third consecutive quarter, its combined shipments of smartphones and tablets – 17.3 million devices – exceeded the number of PCs it sold (15.3 million).

It said it “continued to be the world’s fourth-largest smartphone supplier” with 4.8 per cent market share, growing its shipments 47 per cent year-on-year to 13.9 million units. This was “driven by excellent performance of its smartphone launches in a number of new markets”.

Lenovo said in a presentation that it sold two million smartphone units outside of China for the first time.

The company recently expanded its portfolio with its first LTE smartphone. It said that it is “ready to capture 4G with new products, especially in China”.

Tablet shipments at 3.4 million (a “record high”) represented 300 per cent year-on-year growth, driven by the launch of its Yoga Tablet (described as a “star product”). Its market share increased by three points to reach 4.3 per cent.

Consolidated sales of Lenovo’s Mobile Internet and Digital Home products, which includes smartphones, tablets and smart TVs, increased by 73 per cent year-on-year to reach US$1.72 billion.

This unit makes up 16 per cent of the company’s total revenue, up from 11 per cent last year and from seven per cent two years ago.

On a group level, the company reported a profit of US$265.31 million, up 29.5 per cent, on revenue of US$10.79 billion, up 15.3 per cent.

Telenor cited a to-do list for 2014 that includes tackling political and regulatory challenges in several Asian markets, capital expenditure at home and a major network rollout in Myanmar, as it unveiled guidance for the year that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Fourth quarter 2013 net income fell to NOK 2.43 billion (US$396 million) from a restated NOK 2.51 billion in the same period in 2012, while revenue rose to NOK 27.6 billion from NOK 26 billion in 2012, another restated figure.

The company struck a cautious note while still holding out for upbeat news later in 2014. “It’s early in the year, and given the uncertainties, we think it’s prudent to guide in line with 2013, but the internal ambition is definitely higher,” said CFO Richard Aa as reported by Reuters.

The operator’s projection, excluding its start-up operation in Myanmar, is for low single-digit organic revenue growth, a stable EBITDA margin and a capex to sales ratio of around 16 per cent.

The company also reported that it added five million new subscribers in the final three months of 2013. This figure contributed to a growth of 17 million across the whole of 2013. The growth was mainly driven by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Iraq’s government is seeking to sell its 3G licences to the incumbent mobile networks for at least US$307 million each.

The country’s three national mobile networks are currently limited to GSM services, and while customer growth was initially considerable in a country that lacked reliable telecommunications, the lack of 3G services has been a drag in the past couple of years.

Last week the Council of Ministers agreed in principle to auction 3G licenses, Ahmed Alomary, a former commissioner at the Communications and Media Commission (CMC), told Reuters.

The reserve price has been set at US$307 million, although that is currently just indicative and could change. The mobile networks, which paid US$1.25 billion each for their licences in 2007, have long argued that they should not have to pay extra for 3G approvals.

The auction will also be open to new entrants to the market after plans to automatically award the licences to the three incumbent operators were rejected.

There could also be a regulatory hurdle as Zain and Korek have not listed their shares on the stock market, as required by their GSM licences. The government may need to find a way around that to let them bid in the 3G license tender.

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) has renewed its managed services contract with Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) to further improve operational efficiency, network performance and the quality of services. Through the renewed contract, NSN continues to provide its comprehensive managed services including network planning and optimisation, network and service operations as well as care services including hardware and software services for STC’s Al Jawal network. The contract covers STC’s GSM, 3G and LTE networks within NSN’s footprint.

STC has been in partnership with NSN for over a decade, and this contract renewal will provide sustainable improvement in STC customers’ experience.

“With our expertise in operating multi-technology networks for many leading operators around the world and our global best practices in network operations, we deliver high quality network performance to STC,” said Hani Dib, head of STC customer team at NSN Saudi Arabia. “Our managed services help boost end-to-end network and service performance, and hence allows STC to focus its resources on core business activities.”