Telenor has posted a very slight rise in its first quarter profits as the company’s revenues also rose by a modest amount.

The company said that revenues for the quarter came in slightly higher in at NOK26.5 billion (US$4.48 billion), while profits were NOK 3.67 billion.

"We added six million new mobile subscribers in the first quarter of 2014, the company’s best customer surge in two years. This growth was mainly driven by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The underlying mobile service revenue growth improved to five per cent in the quarter,” said Jon Fredrik Baksaas, president and CEO of Telenor Group.

The company is maintaining its financial outlook for the year, excluding Myanmar, of low single-digit organic revenue growth, a stable EBITDA margin and a capex to sales ratio of around 16 per cent.

Telecom Egypt has agreed to a government demand to pay EGP2.5 billion (USD355 million) for an MVNO licence and will enter into negotiations with the other mobile networks to secure the necessary wholesale access.

The company said in a statement that its "strong financial performance and positive cash position would allow it to pay the total telecom licence (TTL) fees without any external sources of finance.

It has long been expected that the wholesale agreement will be with Vodafone, as Telecom Egypt owns a 45 per cent stake in the local mobile network operator.

That stake may have to be sold though, if, as expected, Telecom Egypt bids to become a full mobile network operator when the government auctions 4G spectrum in 2016.

Zain Group has confirmed that it has increased its stake in its operation in Bahrain to 63 per cent, having acquired an additional 6.25 per cent shareholding from minority shareholders that include Vodafone Group, for a total consideration of U$12.5 million. This values Zain Bahrain at US$200 million.

Zain Bahrain is currently undoing a process to list 15 per cent of its shareholding on the Bahrain Bourse and this latest transaction will permit Zain Group to retain majority control of the Bahrain unit upon completion of the stock market listing.

Etisalat has started a tidying up exercise of its African assets ahead of its planned acquisition of a majority stake in Maroc Telecom.

As part of the plans, Maroc Telecom is paying US$650 million to buy Etisalat’s existing stakes in a number of African mobile networks. Etisalat will then purchase a 53 per cent stake in Maroc Telecom, so the net effect is negligible, but it does combine the two companies’ respective African networks into a single holding company.

Etisalat has subsidiaries in Benin, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Niger and Togo while Maroc Telecom has operations in Gabon, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali.

The sale of the Etisalat networks to Maroc Telecom is conditional on the sale of Maroc Telecom to Etisalat completing.

Ericsson has been awarded a contract to deploy the first LTE and VoLTE-enabled network in Northern Africa for Algerie Telecom.

The network will be a fixed-wireless based broadband Internet service.

Massive demand for broadband services is putting extreme strain on Algeria’s existing copper/fibre fixed-broadband network. Ericsson’s initial deployment will cover "white spots" that do not currently have broadband access, before extending to high-density locations such as universities, airports and commercial districts.