Etisalat is planning to cut around 300 jobs, or about three per cent of its workforce to reduce costs, reports local newspaper, The National. The company’s staff bill has risen by 4.9 per cent over the past nine months.

Faiez Awadh, Etisalat’s senior vice president of human resources said that the cuts would be “focused on productivity, performance, age and redundancy factors”.

“Etisalat has embarked on a limited employee retrenchment programme, which has impacted less than three per cent of staff. Naturally, within a corporation that has been in existence for more than three decades, we can expect an element of natural re-organisation to occur,” he told the newspaper.

The job cuts will be focused on Etisalat’s UAE operations, although the operator plans to continue to hire staff for its international operations. The company has a workforce of 10,460 in the UAE, with a further 6,220 at its overseas subsidiaries.

Alcatel-Lucent’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa president, Adolfo Hernandez, believes the company’s decision to concentrate on the activities and technologies in which it has intrinsic advantages shall serve it even better as time goes on. High leverage networks, fibre, femtocells and LTE are amongst those areas in which the technology company expects to excel

Hernandez, Alcatel-Lucent’s EMEA president says with 40 per cent of the company’s revenues being generated in the region, it remains a strategically significant one

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Etisalat may settle for a significant minority stake in Kuwait’s Zain Group after opposition from some shareholders to a takeover threaten to delay the sale. The UAE operator was in talks to buy a 46 per cent stake in Zain, from a consortium led by the Kharafi Group conglomerate. However, citing two unnamed sources close to the deal, Reuters said that stake had now been cut to 40 per cent.

The delay comes from action by the Al Fawares Holding, which owns a 4.5 per cent stake in Zain, which has launched legal action to halt the due diligence in the planned sale. A ruling on their action is not due until December 22.

Although the initial deal may be for just 40 per cent of the company, Etisalat could still build up its stake over time to secure majority control.

“Please note that we do not comment on market rumours and we have not yet issued any official statement on this regard yet,” Etisalat chairman Mohammed Omran said in a statement.

The monetisation of broadband networks is likely to be one of the key differentiators between successful and not-so-successful service providers now and into the future. Georges Dabaghi, general manager of On Demand Group, the content management subsidiary of content aggregation and video-on-demand (VOD) specialist SeaChange International, identifies areas in which telecom service providers can gain from IPTV and video content delivered over their networks

George Dabaghi is general manager of On Demand Group, the content management subsidiary of SeaChange International

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Nasser Marafih, CEO of the Qtel Group, has been appointed to the board of the GSMA. As a GSMA board member, Marafih will work closely with 25 other board members to provide the strategic direction and guidance that will shape the future of global mobile industry.

The Qtel Group’s appointment to the board is another milestone in the company’s journey from a one-country operator into a regional and ultimately global leader in the telecom industry. The Qtel Group has already grown into the largest operator with the highest number of operations in the MENA region, and a consolidated customer base of more than 69 million people.