Several former executives at South Africa’s Vodacom have been poached by rival network, Cell C, the company has confirmed.

Former Vodacom CEO, Alan Knott-Craig moved to Cell C at the start of April when his non-compete clause expired, and had been rumoured to be trying to lure across several of his former colleagues to the company.

A Cell C spokesperson is reported to have confirmed to media sources in South Africa that the former COO at Vodacom’s Nigeria subsidiary will take up a similar role at Cell C, while a former Vodacom Mozambique manager will be the new CTO.

The third appointment is former Vodacom Mozambique CEO Jose dos Santos who will be joining the company at an unspecified position in the near future.

Sony Mobile – the former Sony Ericsson – has reported a 12.4 per cent fall in revenues of €5.39 billion (US$7 billion) for the full year to the end of March 2012.

The company said that the decline in revenues reflects certain component shortages resulting from the Japanese earthquake and the floods, in addition to the lower number of feature phones shipped as a result of focusing on smartphones.

The company also posted a net loss of €1.145 billion for the whole year – compared to a profit of €74 million in 2011.

This was primarily due to Sony Ericsson recording a valuation allowance of €654 million against certain of its deferred tax assets in Sweden in the quarter ended December 31, 2011, as well as deterioration in its income (loss) before taxes.

On February 15, 2012, Sony acquired Ericsson’s 50 per cent equity interest in Sony Ericsson, which changed its name to Sony Mobile.

UAE telco Du saw its first quarter revenues increase by 20.1 per cent to reach AED2.4 billion (US$653 million).

Mobile revenue increased 21.8 per cent to AED1.9 billion, while mobile data revenue grew to 15.5 per cent of mobile revenues.

Net profit before royalty increased 61.8 per cent year-on-year to AED666 million.

While net profit growth was healthy due to revenue growth combined with increased operational efficiency improvements, quarter-on-quarter growth in net profit before royalty in Q1 2012 was positively impacted by an exceptional impairment of AED47 million in Q4 2011 and one-off gains of approximately AED30 million from favourable settlements in Q1 2012. Provisioning for royalty continues to be made at 50 per cent.

The company added 320,600 mobile customers in the quarter to end-March, bringing its mobile customer base to 5.5 million. Of the subscribers added, 50,400 were post-paid mobile customers, which represented 7.5 per cent of Du’s mobile customer base at the end of the period. Fixed line subscribers increased to 545,300; up 2.7 per cent or 14,000 subscribers quarter-on-quarter.

At the end of March, Du’s share of the UAE mobile market stood at 46.7 per cent, based on the data published by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.

Research In Motion (RIM) today announced the hiring of Kristian Tear as chief operating officer and Frank Boulben as chief marketing officer.

Frank Boulben, left and Kristian Tear, right

Tear joins RIM from Sony Mobile Communications, where he served as executive VP. He previously held a variety of operational leadership positions with Ericsson in Europe, Asia and Latin America. At RIM, Tear will oversee all operational functions for handhelds and services, including research and development, products, global sales, manufacturing and supply chain. 

Boulben is the former executive VP of Strategy, Marketing and Sales for LightSquared. He joined LightSquared after serving as global director of Commercial Strategy for Vodafone Group and executive VP of Brand and Consumer Marketing for Orange Group. Boulben will oversee global marketing efforts at RIM.

Inmarsat, a leading provider of global mobile satellite communications services, today provided the following information for the three months ended March 31, 2012.

Inmarsat plc – highlights

• Total revenue US$355 million up 10 per cent year-on-year.
• Wholesale maritime revenues up seven per cent
• Over 2,000 FleetBroadband terminals added in Q1
• Over 55,000 IsatPhone Pro subscribers at end of Q1

Inmarsat Group Limited – First quarter highlights

• Total revenue US$237 million up six per cent year-on-year
• Inmarsat Global MSS revenue US$178 million down two per cent
• Inmarsat Solutions revenue US$191 million (2011: US$176 million)
• Total EBITDA US$205 million up one per cent
• MSS active terminals up 10 per cent