VimpelCom is to sell its interests in operations in Burundi and Central Africa Republic (CAR) for a combined US$65 million.

Its subsidiary Global Telecom Holding is to sell Telecel Globe Limited, which owns all of Burundi operator U-COM and Telecel in CAR.

It is being acquired by Econet Wireless Global.

Andrew Davies, VimpelCom’s CFO, said the move is a result of the group’s “Value Agenda” strategy, as part of which it has been reviewing its operations to assess their future value to the company.

Global Telecom Holding, which is 51.9 per cent owned by VimpelCom, had previously agreed to sell Telecel Globe in the first quarter of 2013, but the deal was not closed with the prospective purchaser forfeiting a deposit.

Google reported consolidated revenues for the quarter ended September 30 of US$16.52 billion, a 20 per cent increase over third quarter 2013 revenues of US$13.75 billion. However, this performance was below some analysts’ estimates.

GAAP net income (including net loss from discontinued operations) in the third quarter of 2014 was US$2.81 billion, compared to US$2.97 billion in the third quarter of 2013, representing a fall of 5.4 per cent.

In the future, Google is looking to non-advertising businesses to pick up some of the slack. Their contribution is featured as the “Other” category in the company’s results and lumps together a number of different activities.

The segment delivered an impressive figure of 50 per cent revenue growth in Q3 to US$1.84 billion, although it does only account for 11 per cent of Google’s total revenue.

Among the activities are Google’s Play store, which sells apps alongside movies, music and games, and the Chromecast dongle that enables the transfer of video from PC to TV.

The regulator in Ivory Coast has withdrawn the licence of Café Mobile with further cuts to the remaining operators also promised.

“There are seven licences. We aim to cut the number of mobile operators and keep only those who are performing very well,” said Diemeleou Bile, the head of the country’s regulatory authority, according to Reuters.

A number of licences are up for renewal next year, he said.

The country has a relatively high number of licences for a market with a population of around 24 million.

Existing operators include Orange and MTN — the clear market leaders — followed by Etisalat’s Moov and Koz, a unit of Lebanese firm Comium.

Remaining operators Green and Café Mobile both have fewer than one million subscribers. Warid Telecom holds an unused licence.

Café Mobile’s service has been turned off, and its subscribers notified of the change.

This is not the first time the regulator has taken action. It fined all mobile operators a total of US$8 million after audits in 2013 and this year.

Nawras has reported that revenue for the three months to end-September amounted to OMR57.8 million (US$150 million), up 13.9 per cent year-on-year. EBITDA amounted to OMR31.2 million, up 27.3 per cent year-on-year, while net profit was up 35.9 per cent to OMR10.8 million.

Mobile and fixed customer numbers ran to 2.514 million at the end of September, up 6.5 per cent year-on-year.

South Africa’s government is studying a possible sale of its 14 per cent stake in Vodacom, which is worth approximately US$2.3 billion, according to Bloomberg.

The government has approached financial advisers to discuss a possible sale, according to unnamed sources, which said an institutional sale is more likely than a private one – although 65 per cent shareholder Vodafone could be interested.

A deal is not thought to be imminent.

Vodacom is South Africa’s largest operator with 35 million mobile. In addition, it holds stakes in operators in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania.

The South African government is thought to want to use the proceeds to save the struggling state power utility Eskom Holdings.