Qualcomm today announced that its board of directors has unanimously approved Steve Mollenkopf CEO-elect of Qualcomm, and appointed to its board. He will continue to serve as the company’s president. Effective March 4, 2014, Mollenkopf will become CEO and in this role, he will assume overall responsibility for Qualcomm, including all lines of business and all functional groups in the company. On that date, current CEO Paul E. Jacobs will assume the role of executive chairman, helping guide development of new technology and Qualcomm’s long-term opportunities. Jacobs has been CEO of Qualcomm for nine years.

In his nearly 20 years at Qualcomm, Mollenkopf has held a variety of leadership positions including leading the chipset business (QCT), successfully driving innovation and record growth. Under his leadership, Qualcomm became the world’s largest mobile chipset supplier and the global leader in LTE technology.

Etisalat Group announced today the expansion of its mobile phone-based commerce service Flous through its subsidiary Etisalat Moov in Benin.

Flous, which means money and is known as Flooz in Benin, enables customers to use their mobile phones like digital wallets to pay for goods and services, transfer money to the friends and family members, withdraw and deposit cash, top-up mobile phones and manage bank accounts.

Customers can also use their mobile phones as debit cards and manage funds directly from their handsets. The service, offered in partnership with Banque Atlantique du Bénin, is designed to be secure and flexible – requiring a password for each transaction – and gives customers instant access to money 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Service can be accessed on even the most basic mobile handset.

Etisalat currently serves 144 million customers in 15 countries throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Essar Telecommunication has bought out the minority shareholders in its Kenyan subsidiary, giving it full ownership of the firm. It will however have to sell or float a stake later to bring it back within local regulations limiting foreign shareholdings to 80 per cent.

Essar said that it had bought out local businessmen Peter Kibiriti and Jos Konzolo due to their inability to inject hundreds of millions of shillings in shareholder loans to fund Yu’s expansion plans.

The company currently has a waiver on the 80:20 shareholder rules that expires in three years’ time, along with a similar waiver for rival Airtel.

"Considering the capital-intensive nature of the industry, it was difficult for the local shareholders to keep investing in the business at a rapid pace. We are now in the process of having the share transfer done and filing the shareholding change," Madhur Taneja, Essar Kenya CEO said.

Earlier this year, the operator had been looking for fresh investors who could support its network plans, but appears to have opted to buy out the shareholders instead.

Huawei is expected to pull out of the US and will no longer be seeking to win contracts in the country, the firm’s founder Ren Zhengfei has announced.

"If Huawei gets in the middle of US-China relations," and causes problems, "it’s not worth it," Ren said, according to a Chinese transcript of an interview with France’s Les Echos newspaper.

"Therefore, we have decided to exit the U.S. market, and not stay in the middle."

Huawei has struggled to win customers in the US, mainly due to a hostile political environment that has repeatedly warned US firms not to deal with the Chinese company.

A company spokesman later confirmed to Foreign Policy magazine that, "It is true that Huawei has adjusted our priority focus to markets that welcome competition and investment, like Europe."

However, the company is still expected to maintain a R&D facility and may still sell mobile phones in the US, which have not been subjected to the same intense pressure as its network infrastructure sales.

Existing Huawei customer, Japan’s Softbank was forced to promise not to use Huawei equipment in the US in order to secure its takeover bid for Sprint, which may have been the point at which the Chinese firm decided the country simply is not worth the challenges.

Huawei has repeatedly denied allegations that it inserts back-doors and exploits for the Chinese military into its network infrastructure.

Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) says that the necessary approvals for the previously announced sale of its business in the Seychelles to Batelco Group have not been granted.

Accordingly, that disposal did not complete by the long-stop date agreed with Batelco and CWC will be considering its options for the Seychelles business.

CWC did not elaborate on why the regulatory approvals were not granted.

The Seychelles sale was part of a wider agreement by CWC to sell its operations in Maldives, the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, South Atlantic, and Diego Garcia.

This is the second deal between the two companies to unravel – after CWC had to reverse a deal to sell a 25 per cent stake in its Monaco subsidiary to Batelco.