The Essar Group is to acquire a 51 per cent stake in the telecom operations of the Dhabi Group, an investment company led by Abu Dhabi’s royal family. Essar Group is reported to be paying around US$150 million for stakes in Warid Telecom Uganda and Warid Telecom Congo.

The agreement was signed by Sheikh Nahyan Mabarak al Nahyan, chairman of the Dhabi Group, and Prashant Ruia, group chief executive of Essar in Abu Dhabi in the middle of November. The enterprise valuation of the Uganda and Congo operations collectively is estimated at US$318 million. Essar already has a presence in Kenya’s telecom sector through its operation branded ‘Yu’, with the Indian operator looking to strengthen its foothold in the African market.

The Tata Group is another telco from India that is expanding its base in Africa, and already owns a 56 per cent stake in South Africa’s second fixed line operators Neotel.

Essar also holds a 33 per cent stake in India’s Vodafone Essar. MobileStore, Essar’s retail chain, has over 1,300 stores countrywide. The group owns Essar Telecom Infrastructure, one of the largest independent telecom tower infrastructure providers in India.

Warid Telecom also operates in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but these markets were not included in the deal with Essar.

UAE based Du reported a 51 per cent rise in its subscriber base over the past year to 3.14 million customers endQ3 09.

Revenues for the quarter amounted to AED1.33 billion (US$362 million) consistent with the previous quarter and up 25.8 per cent year-on-year. EBITDA came in at AED297.3 million, representing an increase of 22.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter, and 192.9 per cent year-on-year.

Net profit (before royalty) was AED157.1 million for the quarter, up 398 per cent on the same period last year and up 36 per cent quarter-on-quarter.

During the third quarter Du’s pre and post paid mobile subscriber numbers saw continued growth with the addition of 25,900 postpaid mobile subscribers, representing a 55 per cent increase in subscriber additions over the second quarter as a result of a continued marketing strategy to increase market share. Post-paid customers represent 3.6 per cent of Du’s mobile business. Prepaid mobile subscribers witnessed the addition of 207,300 subscribers over the quarter.

Du’s capital expenditure programme is set to exceed AED 2 billion in 2009, with AED 424 million accounted for during Q309 bringing year to date expenditure to AED 1.47 billion.

Mikkel Vinter, CEO of Dubai-based MVNO Friendi Group today announced that the service provider has reached 100,000 subscribers in Oman, just six months after commercial launch at the end of April this year.

In August, Vinter told Comm. that within two months of launch in Oman, Friendi Mobile added 50,000 subscribers. The significance of this progress can be brought into better focus when comparing the entrance of Friendi Mobile with the last time a new player launched in the Omani market. Nawras, Oman’s second licensed telecom provider launched as a mobile player in March 2005, when mobile penetration stood at around 35 per cent. Despite the easier competitive landscape at the time, it took Nawras two months to reach the 50,000 subscriber milestone; the same amount of time it took Friendi Mobile in an environment of 120 per cent penetration and three other competitors.

“We crossed 100,000 subscribers in Oman last week, which is equal to three per cent market share,” Vinter said this afternoon, speaking at the North Africacom conference in Cairo. “I am very happy with this achievement compared to international MVNO benchmarks and our own targets,” he added.

Friendi Group has plans to introduce other MVNO operations in markets across the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and is believed to be close to reaching an agreement with Jordan Telecom to establish an operation in the country. Friendi Group already possesses a license to offer reseller services in Jordan.

A consortium comprising of Etisalat, Du, Abu Dhabi Media Company, Dubai Media Incorporated, Emirates Communications and Technologies Company, a subsidiary of TECOM Investment, and MBC has been granted a licence to provide mobile TV broadcasting services for 10 years. The licence fee amounts to AED 17 million (US$4.6 million), with an additional royalty also be applied on the company. The TRA has agreed to grant the consortium exclusivity to provide the broadcast mobile TV for five years that will end on December 31, 2014.

The consortium has selected to utilise DVB-H technology, and will provide its services to Etisalat and Du, which will in turn offer a variety of competitive and exclusive mobile TV packages to their subscribers. With that, the TRA says it has maintained competition between the companies and reduced the capital expenditure of building networks in the UAE, which will have a positive impact on end-user pricing.

The company is expected to provide at least 13 channels for subscribers of the live TV broadcasting service. The service is expected to commence in Q410 and will cover majority of the UAE population. The UAE will be the first country to issue such licence in the region.

Mobily has announced the signing of a SAR 600 million (US$160 million) deal with Ericsson for the expansion of the coverage and capacity of the operator’s mobile network, including HSPA.

This is Mobily’s second major announcement this year for its 3.75G network, following a statement in March announcing the roll out of HSUPA; which made it one of 31 operators around the world at the time to provide a full HSPA experience according to the GSMA.

Mobily counts 800,000 active HSPA subscribers, who together consume more than one gigabyte of data a month, and who contribute to an overall mobile data exchange of 42 terabytes a day, making Mobily’s HSPA network the busiest in the world.

Today, Mobily’s HSPA network covers 78 per cent of all populated areas and offers customers an average speed of 1.8 Mbps on a HSPA network that supports speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps. Mobily has successfully covered more than 326 cities and towns in the kingdom with the 3.5G and 3.75G.

The contract awarded to Ericsson will increase network capacity and triple mobile broadband speeds, giving Mobily’s customers a faster broadband Internet experience. The contract awarded to Ericsson comes as part of the operator’s commitment to its mobile broadband customer base and as part of a series of other capacity expansion contracts with other global vendors including Huawei and Nokia Siemens.