Zain Saudi Arabia has reported a continued positive trend with Q3 revenues up seven per cent, EBITDA up 44 per cent, with net losses narrowing by a further 15 per cent.

Revenue and gross profit increased seven per cent to SAR1.6 billion (US$420 million) and SAR 761 million, respectively, compared to the same period last year, leading to a significant 44 per cent growth in EBITDA.

The net loss shrank to SA 420 million from SAR 493 million a year ago.

In addition, the customer base grew 24 per cent year-on-year reaching 8.6 million total subscribers.

Commenting on the Q3 2013 results, Fahd bin Ibrahim Al-Deghaither, chairman of the board of Zain KSA, said: "A key milestone achieved this quarter was the successful refinancing of our US$2.3 billion Murabaha facility that served to ensure Zain KSA’s viability going forward, improving cash flow and liquidity, and creating flexibility to support the further expansion and development of our network."

Samsung has posted a rise in its quarterly profits of more than a 25 per cent, boosted by strong smartphone sales and a recovering memory chip business.

The company posted a net profit of KRW8.24 trillion (US$7.6 billion) for the three months to the end of September – of which KRW6.7 billion came from the smartphone division.

This marks the seventh consecutive quarter that Samsung has reported a rise in quarterly profits.

The underlying operating profit rose to KRW10.2 trillion, in line with the company’s estimates.

Samsung also posted a strong improvement at its memory chips division, which was partly boosted by higher prices due to supply shortages caused by a fire at a Chinese factory owned by SK Hynix.

Looking ahead, Samsung warned of low growth in smartphone sales, but said that tablet sales should continue to remain strong.

Ericsson has reported its third quarter financial results and announced that its revenues fell by three per cent year-on-year, although net profits rose by more than a third.

Sales came in at SEK53 billion (US$8.3 billion), although the company noted that if adjusted for foreign exchange losses and asset disposals, sales would have been three per cent higher than a year ago.

Reported sales decreased year-on-year, mainly driven by lower sales in North East Asia and India.

Segments Networks and Global Services showed slightly lower reported sales year-on-year, while Support Solutions saw a more significant decline in volumes. CDMA sales in North America, as well as GSM sales in China, continued to decline.

Net profit came in SEK3 billion (US$470 million) – a sharp rise of 38 per cent over the previous year.

Operating income and operating margin were positively impacted by improved gross margin and no negative effects from ST-Ericsson.

"We are currently seeing sales coming under some pressure. In addition to FX, the major drivers for this development are the two large mobile broadband coverage projects, which peaked in North America in the first half of 2013. We also saw impact from reduced activity in Japan where we are getting closer to completion of a major project." said Hans Vestberg, president and CEO of Ericsson.

MTN Group has warned that its subscriber growth has been impacted by price competition and registration regulations. The South African market remains challenging given regulatory and competitive actions.

MTN South Africa showed some progress after a challenging first half but the company also expects conditions to remain challenging for the balance of 2013. The company added 233,000 subscribers in Q313 bringing its total number of subscribers to 25.2 million at the end of the period.

Revenue growth declined year-on-year, mainly due to lower effective voice tariffs and slower subscriber growth. Data remains the largest contributor to revenue growth with an increase of 16.6 per cent year-on-year. Data users increased to 13.9 million.

MTN Nigeria delivered a satisfactory performance, maintaining share, in a highly competitive market. Subscribers grew marginally to 55.6 million. This was impacted by the mandatory SIM registration deadline in July 2013.

MTN Irancell’s subscriber base declined by 1.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter to 41.3 million. The slow-down in gross connections was due to the weakening economy in a fully penetrated market and increased promotional activities by the competitor. Local currency data revenue increased 54.8 per cent year-on-year and now contributes 9.6 per cent to overall revenue. Local currency ARPU increased by 4.3 per cent assisted by the increase in data revenue.

Nawras reported that total revenues for the first nine months of 2013 increased by five per cent to OMR149.2 million (US$387.5 million). The increase in revenue was driven by data and fixed revenues, offset partially by SMS.

EBITDA for the nine months to end-September grew by 4.1 per cent to OMR71.5 million, driven by revenue growth.

As of September 30, total net profit amounted to OMR23.1 million, down 13.5 per cent compared to OMR26.7 million last year. The operator stated that despite higher EBITDA, net profit was affected by higher depreciation due to the investment in network modernisation.

Total customer numbers grew by 10.9 per cent year-on-year, or 231,644, to 2.36 million, with the fixed service customer base growing by nearly 61 per cent to 61,090 from 38,018 a year earlier. The mobile post-paid customer base was up 5.3 per cent year-on-year to 187,163 customers at the end of September, and in the year to date the mobile prepaid customer base increased by 10.4 per cent to 2.11 million.