Ericsson continues to dominate the global telecom infrastructure market, though its performance in 2012 highlighted some weaknesses that the company is looking to improve. President and CEO Hans Vestberg articulates the company’s future plans and direction

Hans Vestberg believes the further investment in LTE infrastructure in 2013 shall boost Ericsson’s prospects even further during the course of the year

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Google is cutting 1,200 employees at Motorola Mobility as the handset vendor continues its struggle with financial losses, according to the Wall Street Journal. The job cuts are equivalent to more than 10 per cent of Motorola Mobility’s workforce.

The report is based on an internal company email that said “our costs are too high, we’re operating in markets where we’re not competitive and we’re losing money”. The redundancies will impact workers in the US, China and India.

The latest job losses are in addition to a 20 per cent reduction in Motorola’s workforce, equivalent to 4,000 employees, that was announced in August last year.

At end-2012, Google said Motorola had a total of 11,113 employees, a figure which did not include the Motorola Home business, which manufactures TV set-top boxes, and was sold to the Arris Group in December 2012.

Motorola has continued to make operating losses since its acquisition by Google was completed in May last year. In its most recent quarterly results, the vendor posted a US$353 million operating loss.

At the time Google warned that Motorola’s results would be variable for “quite a while” as its business is restructured. The aim is to focus Motorola on fewer markets with a slimmed down product portfolio.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ performance in 2012 took many industry analysts and commentators by surprise as the technology provider reported its best financial year yet, with forward momentum also being present for 2013 and beyond. Igor Leprince, NSN’s man for Middle East and Africa describes why the sense of surprise is not as animated internally, and what the company is doing in the region to ensure further gains

Leprince was appointed head of MEA at the start of 2013, and amongst his main priorities is the development of sustainable growth for NSN in the region

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MTN Group has reported that its full year revenues rose by 10.9 per cent to reach ZAR135 billion (US$15 billion), driven by rising mobile data revenues which were up by nearly 60 per cent.

Revenue rose in all markets, except Nigeria where it fell by 0.8 per cent year-on-year following significant tariff declines amid heightened competition. The weakness in the average rand exchange rate during the year also supported the improvement in reported revenue.

Profits were up by two per cent, which was below market expectations.

Over the past year, subscribers increased 15.1 per cent to 189.3 million, a strong result in the face of the on-going subscriber registration requirements and network challenges in key markets. Looking ahead, the company anticipates reaching the milestone of 200 million subscribers by mid-2013.

Deutsche Telekom has commercially launched its Joyn messaging service, a few weeks later than originally scheduled following earlier technical issues.

Joyn is a GSMA-backed effort by the operator community to compete more effectively with over-the-top players.

The German operator has made the service available at launch via a free app in Google’s Play store (Joyn by Telekom), while an iOS version is expected to become available within the next two weeks. The operator has said that vendors such as Samsung, HTC, Sony, Nokia, LG “and many others” will embed the service on their new smartphones “in the near future.”

Deutsche Telekom said that chat and file-transfer features are available at no extra charge for customers on flat-rate data or messaging plans.

Deutsche Telekom’s move follows an earlier launch by domestic rival Vodafone. With Telefonica also expected to support Joyn later this year, the service will be available to over 80 per cent of all mobile customers in Germany.

Progress in Germany for the Rich Communication Services-enhanced (RCS-e) standard follows launches in Spain (Telefonica, Orange and Vodafone), South Korea (SK Telecom) and the US (MetroPCS). Meanwhile Middle East and North African operator Zain recently announced it will pilot the service in Kuwait (via a deal with Vodafone), “with other operations to follow.”