Egypt’s telecom regulator is to set the final price for the country’s fourth mobile licence by the second half of this year.

Amr Badawi, CEO of the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA), made the announcement at a press conference recently.

The licence is being allocated automatically to Telecom Egypt as part of a wide-ranging review that will see the incumbent mobile networks permitted to resell landline services provided by the state-owned telco.

The fate of Telecom Egypt’s 45 per cent stake in Vodafone Egypt is still being debated. There have been concerns that a sale could affect the landline monopoly’s profits though, which are heavily dependent on its Vodafone shares.

Ben Verwaayen is leaving his job as CEO of Alcatel-Lucent having failed to deliver a turnaround at the telecom vendor, which has reported a 2012 loss.

The company has reported a full-year net loss of €1.372 billion (US$1.86 billion) for 2012 as a result of falling sales in Europe and China, as well as an impairment charge. Annual revenues fell by 5.7 per cent to €14.45 billion.

Verwaayen will remain in his job until a successor has been found, the company said in a statement.

The board had started to look for a new chief executive to takeover following Alcatel-Lucent’s annual general meeting in May.

Verwaayen set himself a three-year target for recovery when he took over Alcatel-Lucent in 2008 but the company has struggled recently as a result of operator spending cuts and competition.

There has been speculation for some time that he would stand down.

The board says it will look at both internal and external candidates. Verwaayen said he would not seek re-election at the general meeting.

“Alcatel-Lucent has been an enormous part of my life.  It was therefore a difficult decision to not seek a further term, but it was clear to me that now is an appropriate moment for the board to seek fresh leadership to take the company forward,” he said.

A story in the Wall Street Journal quoted two sources, one saying the company’s directors had become frustrated at Verwaayen’s slowness in delivering a recovery. A second source said his departure was a mutual decision and he had stabilised the company.

Vodafone has released an interim financial statement and said that its third-fiscal quarter revenues to end-December 2012 fell by 2.6 per cent compared to the previous year to £11.39 billion (US$17.8 billion), primarily due to falls in Italy, UK and Spain.

Vittorio Colao, CEO, commented: "Our results continue to reflect very difficult market conditions in Europe. We are addressing this through firm actions on cost efficiency, and continuing to invest in areas of growth potential."

In Turkey service revenue grew by 18.4 per cent driven by strong growth in data and enterprise, and the continued expansion of the contract customer base.

In India service revenue was up 9.0 per cent with the benefits of a more stable competitive environment offset by the impact of new subscriber verification rules and regulations relating to messaging and processing fees.

Service revenue growth at Vodacom slowed to 1.9 per cent reflecting competitive pricing pressures and a lower level of customer additions, offset by continued strong growth in the international businesses.

Despite continued macroeconomic and political uncertainty service revenue in Egypt grew by 3.1 per cent with a continued increase in the take-up of data services.

Group data revenue grew by 12.8 per cent to £1.7 billion and now accounts for 16.2 per cent of Group service revenue. 33.4 per cent of the telco’s European customers now use smartphones, compared to 24.4 per cent at December 2011.

Scott Gegenheimer was appointed CEO of Zain Group effective December 2, 2012, and immediately faced the challenge of re-establishing and re-communicating the Kuwait-headquartered company’s strategy given its relative inertia in the last two years

Gegenheimer was previously CEO of Wataniya Kuwait, from which he departed in June 2012

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South Africa based Vodacom has reported that its fourth-quarter revenues rose by 1.7 per cent to ZAR18.3 billion (US$2.05 billion). Excluding the sale of Gateway Carrier Services and the impact of movements in foreign currency, revenue would have been up by 4.8 per cent.

South African service revenue also declined by 1.7 per cent due to competitive and economic pressures, coupled with a temporary impact from actions to reduce unprofitable calling card SIMs.

Group active customers increased 12.2 per cent to 51 million, of which 18.5 million are now active mobile data users.

The number of Vodacom Group’s international subscribers grew by 13 per cent and the South African base grew by 12 per cent year-on-year.

Vodafone Group owns 65 per cent of Vodacom.