BlackBerry announced fiscal Q116 results for the first three months ended May 30, 2015 that showed its shift to focus on software is starting to take effect, with John Chen, the company’s CEO, describing this business as “key to BlackBerry’s future growth”.

Software and technology licensing revenue of US$137 million was up 150 per cent year-on-year, making up 21 per cent of the company’s total sales – hardware accounted for 40 per cent and services were 38 per cent.

BlackBerry made no reference to recent speculation that the company is set to support Android OS in its device portfolio.

The company trumpeted 2,600 enterprise customer wins in the quarter. Revenue fell to US$658 million from US$966 million a year ago, while Non-GAAP loss for the period amounted to (US$28) million, while GAAP basic net income for the quarter was US$68 million, compared to US$23 million in the prior-year period. Operating income was US$89 million, up from US$20 million.

The company recognised hardware revenue on approximately 1.1 million smartphones, with an ASP of US$240. This compares with 1.3 million in the prior sequential quarter, meaning increased availability of BlackBerry Classic is having little positive effect in terms of volume, although ASP has increased from US$211.

Also announced today was a “broad patent cross-licensing agreement” with Cisco, covering the two companies’ respective products and technologies. While specifics were not revealed, BlackBerry said that it will “receive a licence fee from Cisco”.

Etisalat has announced that the federal government of the UAE has decided to left the restriction on Etisalat stock ownership by local institutions, foreign institutions, and expatriate individuals provided that such ownership does not exceed 20 per cent.

The UAE government owns 60 per cent of Etisalat shares through Emirates Investment Authority (EIA), and UAE nationals currently own the remaining 40 per cent of the company. The EIA has no intention of reducing its stake in Etisalat for the time-being

The Middle East and Africa (MEA) tablet market recorded its first ever year-on-year decline in Q1 2015, with shipments to the region declining 5.8 per cent to 3.83 million units according to the latest market insights announced today by International Data Corporation (IDC). The company blamed the poor performance on a sharp decline in the region’s biggest tablet market, Turkey, where shipments almost halved when compared to the corresponding quarter of 2014.

A major reason for the decline of the Turkish market was the discontinuation of deliveries for the massive FATIH education project, which had a huge impact on commercial demand for tablets in the country during Q1. Currency fluctuations in Turkey, high inventory levels carried over from Q414, and some saturation in the tablet market also had a negative impact on shipments targeted at the consumer segment.

It should be noted that these latter three factors were responsible for slowing the market’s performance in other key parts of the region as well. Meanwhile, the devaluation of certain major international currencies, such as the euro and ruble, has also negatively impacted tablet demand in MEA as a result of reduced international trade and tourism from the affected regions.

Samsung continued to lead the MEA tablet market in terms of shipments, despite suffering a decline of 5.5 per cent year-on-year to total 920,000 units. Lenovo overtook Apple into second place for the first time, growing almost 96.4 per cent year-on-year after shipping 520,000 units. Third-placed Apple continued to suffer, posting a sharp decline of 43.0 per cent to total 430,000 units. In fourth place, Huawei was the fastest growing major vendor in MEA, shipping 240,000 units for a 280.3 per cent year-on-year growth rate. Turkish vendor Casper posted substantial growth of 131.2 per cent to rank fifth overall with 150,000 units.

The year 2015 as a whole will see positive growth, with shipments forecast to increase 5.8 per cent year-on-year to total 17.66 million units. However, this represents a stark slowdown from the overall growth of 41.6 per cent seen in 2014.

In the longer run, the tablet market is expected to continue growing at a healthy pace over the coming years, cannibalising some of the demand that currently exists for personal computers. However, with IDC expecting shipments to increase 7.0 per cent and 7.9 per cent respectively in 2016 and 2017, the market’s growth will be greatly reduced from the stellar rates experienced in the recent past. It should also be noted that the decline that has been seen in the tablet market’s average selling price in recent times will slow down significantly over the coming years.

ITU has announced establishing the overall roadmap for the development of 5G mobile and defined the term it will apply to it as “IMT-2020”.

With the finalisation of its work on the ‘vision’ for 5G systems at a meeting of ITU-R Working Party 5D in San Diego, California, ITU has now defined the overall goals, process and timeline for the development of 5G mobile systems. This process is now well underway within ITU, in close collaboration with governments and the global mobile industry.

The meeting also agreed that the work should be conducted under the name of IMT-2020, as an extension of the ITU’s existing family of global standards for International Mobile Telecommunication systems (IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced) which serve as the basis for all of today’s 3G and 4G mobile systems.

The next step is to establish detailed technical performance requirements for the radio systems to support 5G, taking into account the needs of a wide portfolio of future scenarios and use cases, and then to specify the evaluation criteria for assessment of candidate radio interface technologies to join the IMT-2020 family. These new systems, set to become available in 2020, will usher in new paradigms in connectivity in mobile broadband wireless systems to support, for example, extremely high definition video services, real time low latency applications and the expanding realm of the Internet of Things (IoT).

The ITU-R Radiocommunication Assembly, which meets in October 2015, is expected to formally adopt the term “IMT-2020”.

Bharti Airtel is no longer selling its telecom towers in Tanzania and Chad to Helios Towers Africa, a move that will likely hinder its efforts to reduce debt and ongoing capital expenditure on infrastructure in African markets.

In a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange, Airtel said that “agreements for sale of tower assets in Tanzania and Tchad have lapsed and therefore stand terminated”, but did not give any reasons.  The statement was reported by the Economic Times.

The sale in the two countries was part of a bigger plan to divest 3,100 of its 15,000 towers in four African countries (the other two are Democratic Republic of Congo and Republic of Congo) to Helios in a deal estimated to worth in the region of US$400 million.

One source said the deal fell through because it “couldn’t be tied up within a time frame” and hence lapsed but is “on for the other two countries”.

The deal was made in July last year, following which Helios pulled in US$630 million of funding from financial backers.

Airtel owns 15,000 towers in Africa and other than the sale to Helios has signed deals to sell 9,400 of them to IHS, Eaton and American Tower Corp according to which it would have access to the towers under a long-term lease contract.

A report last year said the cost of the infrastructure had been weighing on the company’s results, with its African unit yet to make a profit, adding that because the tower portfolio is spread across so many countries in Africa with different regulations, it is difficult to sell the entire stake to one company.