Zain Saudi Arabia announced improving financial results for the third quarter of 2014, recording a 21 per cent increase in EBITDA during the first nine months of 2014, reaching SAR825 million (US$220 million). The company also succeeded in raising its EBITDA margin to 18 per cent, up from 14 per cent during the same period of last year.

The company narrowed its net losses during the third quarter by 25 per cent to SAR316 million, reflecting a 19 per cent improvement in net loss during the nine months. Gross margin increased to reach 52 per cent in the nine-month period, up from 47 per cent a year earlier.

Mobile broadband service customers increase by 145 per cent in in the first nine months as data traffic in the Internet segment continues to increase significantly, growing 541 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2014, and by 673 per cent increase quarter-on-quarter.

MTN Group, which has operations in 21 countries across the Middle East and Africa – and is the second-largest mobile operator in South Africa, its home market – managed modest growth in group subscribers during Q3, but chief executive Sifiso Dabengwa was left ruing what he thought could have been a better overall performance were it not for stiff competition and over-zealous regulators.

“MTN reported encouraging results for the third quarter, delivering subscriber growth of two per cent, quarter-on-quarter,” said the MTN CEO, “[But the] performance was impacted by continued aggressive competition and stringent regulatory requirements.”

There are no hard financial details in MTN’s quarterly update, but the group subscriber base, end September, stood at 219.2 million. Full-year group net addition subscriber guidance has been bounced up a little bit from 17.25 million to 17.5 million.

Quarterly data revenue for the group increased 34.4 per cent year-on-year and now contributes 17.8 per cent of total revenue (although the top-line figure is not disclosed). MTN also added two million registered Mobile Money subscribers during the quarter, taking the total up to 22.2 million.

In South Africa, MTN increased its subscriber base by 5.7 per cent, to 26.7 million, adding 1.4 million net additions over the quarter. This was mainly due to competitive offers in the prepaid segment, said MTN. As a result, the prepaid subscriber base increased by 7.1 per cent, to 21.2 million.

The post-paid subscriber base in South Africa grew by a less impressive 0.3 per cent, to 5.47 million, over Q3. Data revenue growth was also muted, largely because competition has forced down the average effective rate per megabyte by about 18 per cent. Customers on data plans account for 60 per cent of MTN’s total subscriber base in South Africa.

MTN Nigeria also reported a marginal decline in its subscribers, to 58.4 million, largely impacted by what MTN says are regulatory restrictions relating to the “dominant operator” ruling and continued unrest in the northern region during the quarter.

Huawei’s smartphone shipments in Q3 increased 26 per cent to 16.8 million units from the same period last year, with output of higher margin models doubling.

The company said about a quarter of total shipments during the last quarter were mid-range to high-end models.

Although sales in China still outnumber those exported, the ratio is narrowing and now is close to 50:50. Huawei expects “significant growth” in Q4, with the P7 and Mate 7 models driving growth.

Nokia enjoyed a strong quarter selling mobile broadband equipment during Q3, which helped boost year-on-year net sales at its core networks unit by 13 per cent, to €2.94 billion (US$3.66 billion), and widen the division’s non-IFRS operating profit margin from 8.4 per cent (Q3 2013) to 13.5 per cent.

At a group level, Nokia increased year-on-year Q3 net sales by 13 per cent, to €3.32 billion, and posted a non-IFRS operating profit of €457 million, up 33 per cent from Q3 2013.

However, Nokia also booked a non-cash charge of €1.2 billion for impairment of goodwill on Here, its mapping business. When that’s added into the mix, Nokia made an operating loss of €810 million.

Networks

Sales of mobile broadband kit jumped 33 per cent, to €1.67 billion, largely thanks to LTE deployments in North America, China and Taiwan. Mobile broadband net sales in Q3 were up sequentially, too, by 23 per cent.

Sales of higher-margin LTE kit also helped boost profits at the networks unit. Non-IFRS operating profit increased by an impressive 83 per cent (albeit from a relatively small base) from €217 million (Q3 2013) to €397 million. Operating margin – again on a non-IFRS basis – leapt from 8.4 per cent to 13.5 per cent. Gross margin widened from 36.6 per cent to 39.1 per cent.

One blip in the networks unit was Global Services, which saw year-on-year Q3 net sales fall by five per cent, to €1.27 billion. More encouragingly, Q3 sales at Global Services were up seven per cent compared with the previous quarter, helped by an increase in network implementation activity.

Nokia Technologies

Nokia Technologies (its R&D unit) achieved a nine per cent year-on-year growth in net sales, from €140 million to €152 million. Nokia explained that Microsoft had become a more significant intellectual property licensee during the quarter.

Mapping

Nokia’s mapping and location intelligence business, Here, is also making progress, boosting year-on–year net sales by 12 per cent, to €236 million, although it still only accounts for around seven per cent of group net sales. Here sold map data licences for the embedded navigation systems of 3.2 million new vehicles globally, compared to 2.6 million vehicles in Q3 2013.

Coinciding with the release of Q3 financials, Nokia announced the appointment of Sean Fernback as Here’s president (he was previously senior vice president) and a member of the group leadership team. Both roles come into effect from November 1, 2014.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer claimed the company’s revenue growth in the third quarter was the result of progress in the new investment areas of mobile, social, native and video.

Mobile revenue for Q3 was more than US$200 million on a GAAP basis, representing 17 per cent of total revenue for the period. This was the first time revenue generated from mobile advertising was broken out separately by the company.

Yahoo estimated that gross revenue from mobile will reach more than US$1.2 billion by the end of the year. This equates to GAAP revenue of more than US$700 million in 2014.

The company has revamped its mobile offerings and acquired developer talent and app technology under the stewardship of Mayer.

In terms of engagement, the company had around 550 million mobile monthly active users by the end of the third quarter, up approximately 17 per cent year-on-year and more than doubling since the company renewed its mobile efforts in October 2012.

The company reported GAAP revenue of US$1.15 billion for the period, a one per cent year-on-year improvement. Net income totalled US$6.8 billion, after the US$6.3 billion generated from the sale of its shares in Alibaba Group was accounted for. Net earnings a year earlier were just US$297 million.

During the third quarter, Yahoo built on its mobile strategy with the completion of the acquisition of mobile analytics company Flurry.