Bharti Airtel has agreed to sell mobile phone towers in Tanzania and Malawi to specialist players Helios Towers and Eaton Towers, according to Reuters.

Sources said around 1,000 towers in Tanzania will go to Helios, while an unknown number of assets in Malawi will be sold to Eaton Towers.

Alan Harper, the chief executive of Eaton, told Reuters that the deals have been signed but not yet closed, adding that it takes time for these kinds of transactions to progress.

Airtel previously agreed to sell 3,100 towers in four countries to Helios, on the back of which Helios raised US$630 million in fresh funding.

Helios claims to be the leading tower player in Africa, with 7,800 towers across Ghana, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Airtel also agreed to sell a further 3,500 towers in six unnamed African countries to Eaton in September. Prior to the deals the Indian operator group owned a total of 15,000 towers on the continent.

After years failing to articulate a cohesive, forward-looking strategy, Zain Group this morning detailed an intensive five-year plan aimed at nearly doubling its revenues to US$7 billion by 2019 and investing US$5 billion in network and associated infrastructure CAPEX in order to stay ahead of the curve.

Speaking at the company’s annual Zain Technology Day 2014 event held in Istanbul this week, Group Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer Emre Gurkan detailed a new era that the company is set to enter commencing 2015 and beyond in which it looks to transform into a digital lifestyle organisation.

The transformation, which Gurkan describes as ‘creating another Zain out of Zain’ will be based on the adoption of a 3×4 matrix comprising of fixing the basics within the Group, differentiation, and revenue diversification on one axis, and customer experience, operational effectiveness, business growth, and people development on the other.

From this matrix, six strategic initiatives have been defined within Zain Group, namely customer experience; cost optimization; value management; talent development; Zain Digital Frontier and Innovation; and enterprise, with the aim of helping the company generate US$7 billion of annual revenues by 2019.

“Zain has suffered from too many changes in management, and strategies in recent years, which has led us to under-perform in some areas. Led by the CEO, Scott Gegenheimer, we are have identified four root causes to our below par performance, and these are unique externalities; competition from telco operators; competition from OTT players; and internal challenges. We are addressing these issues and the next stage of our development focuses on differentiating and diversifying revenues to become a leading provider of the digital lifestyle experience,” Gurkan said.

Zain will rely on innovation, digital services, corporate venturing/partnering, growth in smart cities and enterprise services to achieve its revenue growth projections, with many of these activities falling under its Zain Digital Frontier and Innovation initiative that the company launched earlier this year.

Mickael Ghossein was appointed as SVP of MENAT for Orange Business Services in November 2014, based at the Orange Business Services Middle East headquarters in Dubai. An engineer by training, he joined the Orange Group in 1987 and has held several senior positions with the group in France, Romania, Reunion and Jordan. Most recently, he was CEO of Telkom Kenya, which is majority-owned by the Orange Group. .

Virgin Mobile Middle East & Africa (VMMEA) today announced the launch of its Virgin Mobile service in Saudi Arabia.

Last month VMMEA launched Friendi Mobile as the first MVNO brand in the kingdom, and by now adding Virgin Mobile the Dubai-based regional telecom arm of the Virgin Group, is further strengthening its competitive position in the Saudi Arabian market.

There are some early indications that VMMEA’s excitement about the Virgin Mobile launch in Saudi Arabia is being reciprocated by the local customers, with more than 70,000 job seekers, the vast majority being young Saudi Arabian nationals, applying for a job with Virgin Mobile unit in the kingdom. In addition, there has already been a considerable buzz about the brand in the social media sites, with almost 300,000 people liking the Virgin Mobile KSA Facebook site.

Virgin Mobile’s launch plans for Saudi Arabia include opening more than 40 own branded shops and kiosks in the leading malls and high streets of the kingdom, plus work with strong indirect distribution partners to provide the Virgin Mobile product at thousands of other locations.

The expectations for Virgin Mobile’s success in Saudi Arabia are based on a customer proposition that include competitive and transparent prices. VMMEA is providing MVNO services in Saudi Arabia in partnership with STC.

Atheer Telecom Iraq (Zain Iraq) has entered into an agreement with Iraq’s Communications and Media Commission (CMC) to secure authorisation to utilise 2100 MHz spectrum for 3G services across Iraq. Zain Iraq recently paid the first instalment fee amounting to US$76.75 million representing 25 per cent of the overall 3G spectrum fee of US$ 307 million.

In anticipation of receiving the 3G spectrum licence, Zain Iraq commissioned three leading global technology solutions providers, namely Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Networks to expand and upgrade the network with single-RAN technology, thus allowing Zain Iraq to quickly roll-out 3G commercial services across the country.

The operator is targeting being commercially operational by January 2015.

Today, data related revenues (excluding SMS and value added services) represent only four per cent of Zain Iraq’s total revenues reflecting an annual growth rate of 12 per cent.

Zain, together with the other three 3G licensees will settle the remainder of their total licence fee payments in four installments over the following 18 months.

There will be a two-month testing period before the commercial launch of 3G, according to the CMC.