Motorola Mobility has announced that its new president and COO will be Rick Osterloh with immediate effect.

He replaces Dennis Woodside, who announced that he was leaving the company just after Google announced its deal to sell the company to Lenovo.

Osterloh is a Silicon Valley veteran and a familiar face across Motorola, where he has been leading all product management and helping to define the ‘go forward’ strategy for the past two years. He first joined the company seven years ago when Motorola acquired Good, and he started Motorola down the Android path while managing product and engineering teams. Between stints, Osterloh joined Skype, where he oversaw design and product for more than 250 million monthly users until it was acquired by Microsoft.

Samsung published solid guidance for Q1 2014, against a backdrop of concern about slowed growth and intense competition in the smartphone market.

The company is anticipating operating profit of around KRW8.4 trillion (US$8 billion), on revenue of KRW53 trillion. This compares with Q1 2013 figures of KRW8.78 trillion and KRW52.87 trillion, respectively.

Samsung is facing an important second quarter, which will see availability of its next flagship smartphone, Galaxy S5.

At its unveiling, the South Korean company highlighted a focus on customer needs rather than technology innovation for its own sake, arguing that users prefer “durable design, a simple and yet powerful camera, faster and seamless connectivity, and a phone that can help them stay fit”.

Samsung is pricing the device around 10 per cent lower than the proceeding Galaxy S4, and has “dialled back” on its marketing efforts in order to protect margins.

While the Galaxy S5 launch comes mid-way between releases of Apple’s flagship iPhone, Samsung will not be without challengers in the premium devices space.

HTC recently announced its One (M8), the successor to its well-regarded One, and Sony’s Z2 is similarly well-specified.

HTC reported another loss-making quarter, as its sales for the three months to end-March came in below expectations, although it is forecasting an imminent return to profitability.

In a statement, the Taiwanese vendor said that it “expects to see a positive trajectory of its revenue in April from March, and forecasts quarter-on-quarter revenue growth in the second quarter, driven by strong market demand for its new products, including flagship HTC One (M8) and mid-tier flagship Desire 816”.

For the first quarter, HTC reported a net loss of TWD1.88 billion (US$62.15 million), compared with a modest prior-year profit of TWD85 million. Revenue was TWD33.12 billion, down 22.6 per cent from TWD42.79 billion in Q113.

Earlier this year, HTC said it was anticipating first-quarter sales of TWD34 billion to TWD36 billion, meaning the current numbers are below this guidance.

Despite a downward trend in sales, HTC has previously only reported one quarterly loss – in the third quarter of 2013.

HTC’s recently announced One (M8) has been largely well received, and is a successor to the similarly well-regarded One. But despite the critical success of its predecessor, HTC has still struggled to gain ground against high-end devices from rivals such as Apple (iPhone 5s) and Samsung (Galaxy S4).

And One (M8) will not have an easy debut, arriving on the market at roughly the same time as Samsung’s Galaxy S5.

HTC has also previously acknowledged its weakness in the mid-tier, a sector where it has previously performed well.

Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) today announced the appointment of Salvatore Maisano as head of Central East and West Africa (CEWA). In his new role, Maisano is responsible for overall sales and operations of NSN across the CEWA region. Previously, he was head of sales for MEA at NSN. Maisano has held a number of senior management positions in the ICT industry, including head of China and Far East at OTE/Marconi (now Selex).

Maisano joined Nokia in February 1999 from OTE/Marconi, where he was heading China and the Far East region, based out of Beijing.

He started his career in R&D and has developed a truly international career, leading global accounts, sales and operations across Europe, Middle East and Africa, as well as Asia Pacific, China and India.

Born in Italy, Maisano holds an MSc in Applied Mathematics from the University of Florence, Italy.

Bob Collymore, Safaricom CEO, said the operator had already given up interest in smaller rival Yu by the time the regulator issued tough conditions on any takeover deal.

“I said last week and still maintain that Safaricom is no longer interested in this deal,” Collymore told Business Daily. “The decision we must make is whether to come back to it or not.”

A main sticking point is the M-Pesa money service. Safaricom is unhappy that it would need to open up its M-Pesa agency network – as a condition of a Yu deal – to rivals Airtel, Telkom Kenya Orange and MVNOs.

In February, both Safaricom and Airtel expressed an interest in Yu, owned by Essar Telecom.

Safaricom had an eye on buying Essar Telecom’s passive infrastructure (located on 453 sites), while Airtel was keen on Yu’s GSM licences and subscribers

However, the industry regulator attached strict conditions, including the payment of Essar Telecom’s outstanding licence fees.