Facebook opened its first office in Africa to “help businesses connect with people and grow locally and regionally”, and said that activity is happening overwhelmingly via mobile devices.

The company’s office will be in Johannesburg and headed by ad agency Ogilvy veteran Nunu Ntshingila, the company’s new Africa head.

Facebook’s active user population in Africa grew by 20 per cent to 120 million in June 2015 from 100 million in September 2014, with over 80 per cent of users accessing Facebook from mobile phones.

It plans to initially focus on growing its business in countries in the major regions of Sub Saharan Africa, including Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, helping businesses build solutions to grow, while connecting brands with consumers.

Facebook will also partner with governments, operators and agencies to deliver localised services to advertisers and users and continue to focus on tailoring solutions, metrics and ad formats to the needs of customers and advertisers in Africa’s “mobile-first, mobile-only” environment.

As part of its efforts to reach out to users in emerging markets, the company launched Facebook Lite last month. Its Internet.org initiative, which allows free access to more than two dozen websites, first launched in Zambia and is available in many African markets including Ghana and Tanzania.

Zain Group has announced the appointment of telecom stalwart Peter Kaliaropoulos as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of its managed Touch operation in Lebanon. This is the mobile operation Zain manages on behalf the Lebanese government. Kaliaropoulos’ appointment is effective immediately, as former CEO Wassim Mansour returns to a senior management role within Zain Group after a 12-month period leading Touch.

Kaliaropoulos has enjoyed over 30 years of experience in the international ICT sector, playing a key role in the transformation and growth of a number of companies operating across the Asia-Pacific and Gulf regions. Prior to joining Zain, Kaliaropoulos held various senior executive roles in the region including Group CEO of Batelco; and COO of Wataniya Kuwait.

Mobily will reissue its 2014 annual financial statements, increasing the loss for the year by approximately SAR 830 million (US$220 million), following an investigation of accounting errors by the kingdom’s Capital Market Authority (CMA), the company said.

However, its performance for Q1 2015 will improve by approximately SAR 207 million, to SAR 8 million net profit.

Separately, the company will also “increase provisions by SAR 800 million” relating to Zain’s account receivables, the impact of which it said “will be recognised in Q2 2015”.

Meanwhile, Etisalat said Mobily’s earnings restatement will “negatively impact” its own 2014 results by AED 616 million (US$167.7 million) before royalty payments.

According to Mobily’s statement, a specialised team established by the CMA had “identified certain concerns with the set up and operation of fibre to the home (FTTH) contracts and brand reseller contracts” and “concluded that the legal form of these contracts needs the company to reconsider its accounting approach to such contracts.”

“The report also highlighted concerns over the company’s practice of depreciating fixed assets,” the statement added.

Mobily has been under investigation by the CMA since November, after the operator restated figures for 2013 and the first nine months of 2014, which it blamed on an accounting error.

The issue led to the suspension, and then sacking of founding CEO Khalid Al-Kaf.

Earlier this month, Mobily postponed its annual shareholder meeting after the CMA suspended trading of its shares on the country’s stock exchange, saying it would not resume trading until the operator “discloses the financial impact on its financial statements, in light of observations that have been submitted to the company”.

Mobily also claims it is owed SAR2.2 billion by Zain Saudi Arabia according to a 2008 contract under which it would provide Zain with services including domestic roaming, and has been in arbitration with the operator.

Ericsson has announced that Patrik Melander has been appointed as Head of Customer Unit for the GCC and Pakistan (GCP).  In his new role, Melander will oversee Ericsson’s business within GCC and Pakistan geographies in addition to his current responsibilities as Head of Global Customer Unit Zain at Ericsson.

He replaces Victoria Strand, who was appointed to the role in January 2013.

Melander has more than 22 years of international experience within Ericsson where he started in the research and development sector in 1993 then worked in a number of global and regional positions based in the USA, Japan, Brazil, Costa Rica, Philippines, Sweden and recently UAE.

Al-Khatem, parent company of Atheer Telecom Iraq Limited (trading under the brand name Zain in Iraq) announces the completion of its listing procedure, fulfilling all of its obligations within the required two-month period stipulated by the Communications and Media Commission (CMC). Al-Khatem has now commenced trading its shares on the exchange and is open to public investment.

Zain has been operating in Iraq since 2003; investing over US$5 billion to date establishing essential mobile telecommunications infrastructure in Iraq and employing over 2,500 Iraqi nationals.

In accordance with its licence terms, 25 per cent of the equity of Al-Khatem was offered to the investor community on the Iraqi stock market by one of the founding shareholders of the company.  The first day of trading saw the share price closing at IQD5.99 (US$0.005) (with an average price of IQD6.09) per share reflecting a market capitalisation for Al-Khatem of IQD10.96 trillion and leading to a substantial increase in the Iraq Stock Exchange’s overall market capitalisation.