VimpelCom announced that its quarterly revenues declined slightly, and its profits halved as the company was hurt by regulatory cuts and a general market slowdown.

The company posted third-quarter revenues of US$5.7 billion, which were down by one per cent year-on-year.

The company said that its revenues were hurt by regulatory and governmental actions in the business unit in Africa & Asia and the mobile termination rate cuts in Italy. Excluding the reduction of mobile termination rates in Italy, group revenues would have remained stable organically year-on-year.

At the same time the customer base rose by five per cent to 219 million subscribers. The largest absolute contribution came from a substantial increase in subscribers in Asia and Africa.

However net profits were down by 53 per cent to US$255 million. The decrease is primarily the result of negative foreign exchange effects and higher finance costs due to the Eurobonds issued in Q113 for the repayment of maturing debt in 2013 and 2014.

"The third quarter results were impacted by regulatory and competitive pressures. Our underlying performance was stable and the operational improvements we are making in Russia are on track, with mobile service revenue growth of three per cent,” commented Jo Lunder, the company’s CEO.

Zain Kuwait plans to launch a commercial LTE-A network in the country, based on hardware supplied by Huawei.

The rollout will see Zain and Huawei activate over 100 LTE-A cell sites during a first phase, with Zain indicating that the technology will later be made available across the country as more sites become operational.

"The deployment of this milestone commercial LTE-A network will jump start the next phase of mobile communications in the Middle East, providing mobile broadband customers across Kuwait an opportunity to enjoy unparalleled communication services," said Omar Al Omar, CEO of Zain Kuwait.

Kuwait is experiencing high levels of market saturation in its telecom sector, with an estimated mobile penetration rate of nearly 215 per cent. Zain has a market share of around 39 per cent of mobile broadband customers in Kuwait with nearly 10 per cent of its mobile customers having already migrated to LTE.

Huawei has pledged to invest a minimum of US$600 million in research and innovation for 5G technologies by 2018. The investment will cover a range of key enabling technologies, including the research of air-interface technology.

Huawei predicts that the first 5G networks will be ready for commercial deployment starting in 2020 and will deliver peak data rates of over 10Gbps, 100 times faster than today’s 4G networks.

Eric Xu, rotating CEO of Huawei, said: "Innovation is a continuous journey. While we continue to evolve our existing 4G network capabilities, we plan to invest a minimum of US$600 million over the next five years on research and innovation for 5G mobile network technologies to ensure that we are meeting the consumers’ demands for increasingly faster and better connections. This number does not include investment to productise 5G technologies."

Huawei says that it began investing in 5G in 2009. At the Mobile World Congress in 2011 and 2012, the company demonstrated industry-leading 5G prototype base stations with the capacity up to 50 Gbps. To date, Huawei has participated in the EU’s 5G research projects, worked on the establishment of the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) in England, and participated in joint research programmes with over 20 universities around the world.

"There are several issues that must be resolved before 5G can become a reality," said Xu. "These include the availability of spectrum and technological challenges, such as how to engineer network architectures capable of handling increasingly higher data volumes and transmission speeds necessary to accommodate more users on the network."

Ooredoo is selling its Saudi Arabian iDEN mobile network, Bravo, to STC for an undisclosed amount.

Bravo is owned by Ooredoo subsidiary, Wataniya Group and has been operating a "Push-to-Talk" mobile service in Saudi Arabia since 2005.

In 2005, Bravo entered into a build operate transfer agreement with STC for 15 years to provide wireless communication services using iDEN technology.

Ooredoo said that the iDEN standard is no longer core to its group’s strategy.

In the final settlement of Bravo’s obligations to STC, it has been agreed that Bravo will make a settlement payment for STC dues, and Wataniya will transfer all the shares of Bravo and its assets to STC.

Etisalat today said it has signed with Vivendi a share purchase agreement for the acquisition of Vivendi’s 53 per cent stake in Itissalat Al Maghrib (Maroc Telecom).

Etisalat made a binding offer that valued each Maroc Telecom share at MAD92.6 (US$11.16), amounting to a consideration of €3.9 billion (US$5.27 billion) for Vivendi’s 53 per cent stake in Maroc Telecom. The consideration does not include the dividend received by Vivendi from Maroc Telecom in respect of the 2012 financial year, equivalent to MAD7.40 per share, which will also be for the benefit of Etisalat. At closing, Etisalat will pay Vivendi the cash value of such 2012 dividend of €300 million.

Closing of the acquisition of Vivendi’s stake in Maroc Telecom by Etisalat is subject to a number of conditions. These include, among others, the execution of a shareholders’ agreement with the Morocco government regarding Maroc Telecom, securing competition and regulatory approvals in Morocco, and certain other relevant jurisdictions in Maroc Telecom’s footprint.