The tablet market in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) recorded robust year-on-year growth in the final quarter of 2014, with holiday purchases and aggressive end-of-year promotions spurring a particularly strong performance in the consumer segment. The latest figures released today by global advisory services firm International Data Corporation (IDC) show that the overall MEA tablet market grew 26.1 per cent year-on-year in Q414 to total 4.43 million units, with the activities of several Far East manufacturers spurring significant annual growth in shipments of Android (33 per cent) and Windows (131 per cent) tablets.

In South Africa, Vodacom introduced its own tablet and shipped approximately 170,000 units during the quarter, while in Turkey, local vendor Casper shipped around 100,000 tablets through the telco channel.

Year-on-year growth of 16 per cent saw Samsung continue as the leading vendor in MEA, with the Korean company shipping a total of 886,000 units to the region in Q4 2014. And despite suffering a decline of 11 per cent, Apple retained second place in the market, with shipments totaling 580,000 units. Lenovo remained in third position, but with year-on-year unit growth of 100 per cent and volumes totaling 572,000 units for the quarter, the vendor is extremely likely to overtake Apple at some point during 2015. Asus maintained its fourth position despite shipments falling seven per cent to 206,000 units, while Turkish vendor Casper increased its shipments 80 per cent to 180,000 units on the back of strong growth in the consumer and education segments.

BlackBerry reported a profit for the quarter to February 28, 2015 (its fiscal Q4) of US$28 million, compared with a prior-year loss of US$423 million, on revenue of US$660 million, down from US$976 million. On an operating level, it narrowed its loss to US$106 million from US$537 million.

The company saw investment income of US$115 million related to the sale of its stake in the Rockstar patent venture.

It noted that in the quarter, it saw a “normalised positive cash flow” of US$76 million, compared with US$784 million cash used in the same quarter last year.

BlackBerry also had a cash and investments balance of US$3.27 billion at the end of the period, up US$608 million year-on-year, and “matching the highest balance in company history”.

Revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 42 per cent hardware, 47 per cent services, and 10 per cent software.

Software revenue was up 20 per cent year-on-year to US$67 million, an encouraging move given the company’s ongoing transition to a more software-driven revenue stream, away from its more traditional hardware- and services-driven model.

During the quarter, it recognised hardware revenue on approximately 1.3 million BlackBerry smartphones – with approximately 1.6 million sold through to end customers.

As the company refreshed its devices portfolio, it has also seen its average selling price increase to US$211, compared with US$180 in the earlier sequential quarter.

BlackBerry noted a number of positives for the fourth quarter, including the launch of its Classic smartphone, a partnership with Google to support Android for Work, and completion of its Secusmart acquisition.

For the full year, net loss was US$304 million, compared with US$5.87 billion in the year to March 2014, on revenue of US$3.34 billion, down from US$6.81 billion.

Vodafone has expanded its presence in Africa via a new ‘Partner Market’ agreement with Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited (BTCL).

The deal will see BTCL become Vodafone’s preferred partner in Botswana.

According to Vodafone Partner Markets chief executive Stefano Gastaut, this will enable Vodafone to expand the reach of its products and services within Africa and extend its partner market footprint to 55 markets worldwide (in addition to the 26 countries where it actually owns mobile operations).

BeMOBILE, the mobile arm of BTCL, was established in 2008 and claims to have the widest network coverage in Botswana, reaching almost 90 per cent of the population. According to GSMA Intelligence it is the country’s third-largest (and smallest) mobile operator with 716,000 connections and a 21 per cent market share. Unlike its rivals MTN and Orange, it has not yet launched 3G services and instead only supports 2G networks.

Vodafone said its multinational corporate customers will benefit from the addition of Botswana to their existing contracts for international managed services, while continuing to be serviced via a single point of contact.

In November, Vodafone ramped up its sub-Saharan presence by partnering with Afrimax Group, a company that deploys TD-LTE-based networks, to cooperate around the launch of voice and data services.

Ericsson and Etisalat have partnered to deploy Ericsson’s Radio Dot system. This is the first implementation of its kind in Egypt and demonstrates the solution’s capabilities catering to the fast-growing demand for data traffic in Egypt.

Ericsson Radio Dot system is a cost-effective, no-compromise solution to indoor coverage challenges. It is designed to support operators in consistently delivering a better user experience for both voice and data in the broadest range of enterprise buildings and public venues.

Ericsson’s solution fully integrates with Etisalat’s network and provides seamless coverage for Etisalat’s consumer and enterprise customers in the broadest range of in-building deployment scenarios, ensuring consistent delivery of excellent customer experience in voice and data services.

Ericsson’s chief marketing officer and chief commercial officer, Helena Norrman, said the company had been preparing for the right conditions to introduce its ongoing transformation strategy for some years now, and that despite Ericsson’s leadership in the telecom infrastructure business, the company sees its future in areas that it does not currently exercise dominance in.

Speaking to Comm. on her first visit to Dubai, Norrman said, “We are of the belief that our future success will not be based on hanging on to what we already have, but rather developing into new areas. We are investing in what is beyond the core of what we do, and we believe market conditions are such that we will remain relevant in the next phase of the evolution of the telecom sector.”

Ericsson has previously stated that it intends to maintain its strong position in its core business areas of radio, core and transmission, and telecom services, while also looking to establish leadership in specific areas identified as cloud, IP networks, TV and media, OSS/BSS, as well as vertical industrial and societal industries such as transportation, public services, and energy.

While the time horizon for the achievement of the first wave of transformative undertakings at Ericsson is set at 2020, Norrman says most of the five areas that Ericsson is placing a greater emphasis on will and have already begun to produce results, and will continue to do so in the years to come. She believes that partnerships will be a strong element in the company’s journey, with the bottleneck to further uptake of mobile digital services being more about affordability rather than the availability of the technology.

“In the development of the telco sector there was a period of vendor strength, followed by a period of operator strength. What I think we are currently in an era of partnership and I believe this will be to the overall benefit of all participants in the ecosystem,” Norrman said.