Apple announced today that it will spend US$45 billion of its almost US$100 billion cash pile over the next three years on shareholder dividends and a US$10 billion share buyback programme.

The news ends long-standing speculation around what the increasingly cash-rich iPhone-maker will do with its cash pile after a stellar performance in its current fiscal year to date. Its free cash stood at US$97.6 billion at year-end, with some US$64 billion of this based outside the US.

But Apple said the move would not affect its ability to invest in its business or make acquisitions. “We have used some of our cash to make great investments in our business through increased research and development, acquisitions, new retail store openings, strategic prepayments and capital expenditures in our supply chain, and building out our infrastructure. You’ll see more of all of these in the future,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Even with these investments, we can maintain a war chest for strategic opportunities and have plenty of cash to run our business – so we are going to initiate a dividend and share repurchase programme.”

The firm plans to initiate a quarterly dividend of US$2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1. This would eventually lead to payout of about US$10 billion a year, making it (he claimed) one of the largest dividend-payers in the US.

Meanwhile, the company’s board has authorised a US$10 billion share repurchase programme starting in FY 2013, which begins on September 30, 2012. The programme is expected to be executed over three years, with “the primary objective of neutralising the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programmes."

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) announced today that it has appointed Samih Elhage as its chief operating officer (COO). Elhage will join NSN on March 19, 2012, reporting to the company’s chief executive officer, Rajeev Suri.

The new role of COO has been created to lead the Global Operations organisation at NSN and the transformation of the company’s mode of operations and business performance management. In this new role, Elhage joins the company’s executive board.

Elhage was previously a senior advisor to leading private equity and global management consulting firms, focusing on investments and improving the operating performance of companies in the telecommunications sector. Prior to these advisory roles, until August 2010, Elhage held a number of leadership roles at Nortel, including president of Carrier Voice over IP and Applications Solutions and vice president of Corporate Business Operations.

Elhage has more than 22 years of deep and broad expertise in telecommunications. He began his career at Bell Canada in 1990 where he held multiple management and leadership roles relating to network development. Elhage then joined Nortel in 1998, where he held leadership roles in its Optical, Broadband and Core Data Networks organisations, before assuming leadership of Business Transformation and Operations.

Kenya’s Safaricom has threatened to withdraw from plans to build a shared LTE network for all three of the country’s mobile networks if the government insists that it operate in the 2.6GHz spectrum band.

Safaricom wants the network to be built using the 700MHz spectrum band as it requires far fewer base stations, especially in rural areas, and is hence cheaper to deploy, at least initially.

"We would want to know the frequency band that will be used; if it is not 700MHz then they (government) may consider Safaricom out of it," Nzioka Waita, Safaricom’s corporate affairs director told Business Daily Africa.

The government has been pushing for the networks to cooperate on a single shared network infrastructure as it says there will be cost saving for consumers if the operators do not build competing systems.

Etisalat has confirmed it will cease operations in India on March 31 as it commits to exiting the market. The company said last month it would close its Etisalat DB network following the Indian Supreme Court decision to cancel 122 2G spectrum licences.

In a statement on the website of Cheers Mobile, the brand used for Etisalat DB’s services in the country, it said that “customers are encouraged to ‘port out’ their Cheers number to a network of their choice as soon as possible.”

Etisalat holds around 45 per cent of Etisalat DB (formerly Swan Telecom), for which it paid US$900 million in 2008, with partner Majestic Infracon owning a similar-sized stake. The unit holds 15 of the licences that were cancelled by the regulators, having been issued through a much-criticised licensing process in 2008.

2G licences were cancelled after it was argued that the concessions issued in 2008 were done so without a proper competitive process and deemed to have been allocated unfairly. The Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India last week released a consultation paper on plans to conduct an auction for the 2G spectrum to allocate it on a fairer basis.

Ericsson is set to cut up to 10 per cent of its 15,000 workforce in North America, as it looks to ensure it has “the best people, with the right competencies, in the right places.”

The company has seen its workforce in the region swell in recent years, following its acquisition of CDMA and LTE assets from Nortel Networks – a transaction that saw more than 2,500 staff join Ericsson. It has also signed a number of high-profile deals, including the contract to manage Sprint’s mobile network – which saw 6,000 staff moving companies.

For the full year 2011, Ericsson reported sales of SEK48.8 billion (US$7.17 billion) for its North America business unit, down one per cent year-on-year. It was one of the company’s poorest performing regions in terms of year-on-year sales growth, after Southeast Asia and Oceania (seven per cent sales decline) and Western and Central Europe (four per cent drop).

North America represented around 22 per cent of Ericsson’s total sales during this period.

This decline was attributed to a drop-off in network infrastructure sales, while its services and multimedia businesses “developed favourably.” It was noted that sales slowed in the latter part of the year following an earlier period of network capacity building, and CDMA sales also declined due to the “rapid shift to LTE.”