Alcatel-Lucent has reported a Q414 profit attributable to equity holders of €271 million (US$307 million), more than doubled from €134 million a year earlier. Revenue of €3.68 billion was down six per cent on a comparable basis.

Q4 revenue excluding Managed Services declined three per cent year-on-year. At constant currency, revenue excluding Managed Services increased two per cent year-on-year.

Managed Services revenue halved to €96 million, reflecting the termination or restructuring of loss-making contracts.

CEO Michel Combes said that Alcatel-Lucent is “in a strong position to capitalise on profitable growth opportunities and will focus on operational excellence and quality of service.”

The bottom line improvement was said to reflect lower financial expenses and higher income tax benefits partially offset by higher restructuring expenses.

Q4 sales of wireless access products decreased nine per cent year-on-year to €1.21 billion, with sales driven by LTE capacity projects in the US and TD-LTE projects in China, “but at a more moderate pace compared with the first half of 2014,” said Combes.

The company also continued to diversify its LTE customer base, with 11 new wins in the fourth quarter, including AINMT in Scandinavia, and expanded its small cell presence, signing three new customers to take its total to 76.

The company improved profitability in its Core Networking segment, increasing to €288 million from €258 million on revenue that increased one per cent to €1.8 billion.

For the full-year, Alcatel-Lucent reported a loss of €118 million, compared with €1.3 billion in 2013, on revenue of €13.18 billion, down three per cent.

Excluding Managed Services, revenue was flat for the year. Profit was impacted by reduced financial expenses and higher income tax benefits in 2014, as well as an impairment charge in the prior-year period.

Full-year wireless revenue increased by four per cent to €4.69 billion.

Vodacom Group reported that revenue for the fiscal third-quarter to end-December 2014 dipped by 1.1 per cent, to ZAR19.99 billion (US$1.75 billion), while service revenue was down 2.7 per cent, to ZAR15.82 billion.

Sales in South Africa fell 3.1 per cent, to ZAR15.99 billion.

Vodacom partly attributed the year-on-year fall in group Q3 revenue to a halving of mobile termination rates (MTRs) in its home market, which came into effect in April 2014, but pointed the finger too at increased competition and more budget conscious consumers.

Strip out those domestic MTR cuts and Vodacom said group revenue would have risen 1.5 per cent, and that sales in its domestic market would have remained flat.

But MTRs were not solely to blame for a top-line decline.

Service revenue in South Africa fell 5.8 per cent, to ZAR11.86 billion, and would still have fallen – by 1.7 per cent – if MTR cuts were removed from the equation. Increased competition, and consumers keeping a more watchful eye on how much they are spending, is also taking its toll.

One Q3 upside for Vodacom was strong data growth. Group data revenue increased 19.9 per cent, to ZAR4.33 billion, representing 27.4 per cent of service revenue.

Group active customers increased 9.1 per cent, to 61.1 million, but active data customers grew 16.4 per cent, to 26.5 million

Vodacom said that its domestic LTE network now covers 34 per cent of the population (2,194 sites), while 3G population coverage is 94 per cent (8,407 sites).

Internationally, the operator said it had increased the number of 3G sites by 52.7 per cent in comparison to last year, and that the number of 2G sites was up 27.2 per cent.

International service revenue grew 7.6 per cent year-on-year, to ZAR3.98 billion, although quarter-on-quarter growth was slower (2.6 per cent).

Revenue from M-Pesa, the money transfer service, grew 28.2 per cent year-on-year, while the number of M-Pesa customers increased 29.7 per cent, to 7.6 million.

Joosub added that the operator is “continuing to work through the approvals process” for the acquisition of fixed-line provider Neotel in its domestic market.

Etisalat Group announced today the appointment of Faiez Awadh as the chief human resources officer of Mobily in Saudi Arabia.

Awadh brings to Mobily over 20 years of experience in human resources, and has a proven track record of effective leadership. He led Etisalat UAE’s HR department from 2009-2012 before joining the HR department of Etisalat Group as senior VP for HR Business Optimisation. In this position he directed and managed local and virtual teams spanning across Etisalat Group operations in the formulation and execution of projects related to human capital strategy, cultural change, global values roll-out, employee engagement, employee relations and international communications.

Last November, Mobily suspended its chief executive Khalid Al-Kaf and put his deputy Serkan Okandan in temporary charge pending an investigation into accounting errors.

Zain Group announced its consolidated financial results for the year 2014 and fourth quarter ended December 31, 2014, ending the period with 44.3 million customers, reflecting a four per cent decline year-on-year.

For the year 2014, Zain Group generated consolidated revenues of US$4.3 billion, down two per cent year-on-year, while consolidated EBITDA for the period reached US$1.8 billion, down five per cent year-on-year. Zain’s EBITDA margin for the year stood at 41.8 per cent, while consolidated net income amounted to US$685 million for 2014, down 10 per cent.

For the fourth quarter of 2014, Zain Group recorded consolidated revenues of US$1.0 billion, down 11 per cent year-on-year, while EBITDA for the quarter reached US$406 million, down 17 per cent. Net income for the quarter amounted to US$ 115 million, down 36 per cent year-on-year.

Vodafone Qatar announced its results for the nine months to December 31, reporting that net loss for the period amounted to QAR150 million (US$41.2 million), an improvement of 30 per cent year-on-year. Total revenue for the period amounted to QAR1.74 billion, up 21 per cent year-on-year, while subscriber numbers totaled 1.41 million, up 11 per cent from a year earlier.

The company reported that mobile ARPU had remained stable at QAR125 for the nine-month period, with EBITDA having grown 22 per cent year-on-year to QAR421 million, and EBITDA margin remaining stable at 24 per cent.

Distributable profit increased 71 per cent year-on-year to QAR152 million.