Saudi Arabia’s Etihad Atheeb Telecom (Go) has been granted permission by the kingdom’s stock exchange regulator to raise US$310 million in a new share issue. The rights issue will be limited to existing shareholders.

Once completed, the company’s shares should resume trading on the stock exchange, which were suspended when its losses exceeded 95 per cent of its valuation.

The company holds a landline operator licence under the Go Telecom brand as well as a WiMAX licence, and is 15 per cent owned by Bahrain’s Batelco.

It had been expected that the company would be merged with Zain if the Batelco-led takeover of Zain Saudi Arabia had succeeded. The collapse of those talks left Atheeb on its own.

The company has not said when the share issue will take place.

AT&T has finally accepted that the obstacles to its takeover of T-Mobile USA are proving insurmountable, and has formally dropped the takeover bid.

Due to the collapse of the takeover bid, AT&T will recognise a pre-tax accounting charge of US$4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011. Additionally, AT&T will enter a mutually beneficial roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom.

"To meet the needs of our customers, we will continue to invest," said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. "However, adding capacity to meet these needs will require policymakers to do two things. First, in the near term, they should allow the free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the US wireless industry, including expeditiously approving our acquisition of unused Qualcomm spectrum currently pending before the FCC. Second, policymakers should enact legislation to meet our nation’s longer-term spectrum needs."

The takeover bid was originally announced in March 2011, and was for a US$39 billion takeover of T-Mobile by AT&T. Under the terms of the deal, Deutsche Telekom was due to receive US$25 billion in cash and US$14 billion in AT&T shares.

Deutsche Telekom had planned to use approximately US$18.4 billion of the proceeds to reduce its debts. Although Deutsche Telekom is no longer receiving the cash from the sale, and will have to reconsolidate T-Mobile USA into its accounts, it is receiving cash and services worth around US$6 billion in compensation.

Samsung Electronics today announced that it has this year achieved annual mobile handset sales of 300 million units for the first time in Samsung’s history.

Samsung’s 2011 sales results cap a successful year for Samsung across its entire handset portfolio. The company’s flagship GALAXY S range of products – GALAXY S and GALAXY S II – contributed significantly to the success, as the products have continued to gain popularity among consumers and driven the GALAXY brand to one of the most recognised mobile brands in the world. The GALAXY S II, launched in 2011, set a new sales record for Samsung, generating 10 million sales quicker than any mobile device in the company’s history.

Meanwhile, Samsung’s portfolio of bada smartphones continues to gain sales momentum around the world, further boosted in 2011 with the launch of the newly upgraded bada 2.0. This year, Samsung announced new additions to the bada-powered Wave smartphone portfolio, including the flagship Wave 3, which is will be soon available in the GCC market.

Shares in BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) slipped by as much as seven per cent in extended trading on December 15 as the under pressure handset manufacturer reported another disappointing quarter, provided a weak sales outlook for the current period and pushed back the launch of its new device line.

For the quarter ended November 26, net income came in at US$265 million, down 70 per cent from a year ago, while sales came in at US$5.17 billion, down from US$5.5 billion. Although RIM had earlier warned of the poor numbers, the figures were still below most analyst forecasts.

The company sold 14.1 million devices in the quarter, increasing its BlackBerry subscriber base to 75 million, up 5 million on the previous quarter. However, it shipped just 150,000 units of its PlayBook tablet.

More bad news was revealed on the earnings call by co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, who said that the first devices running the new BlackBerry 10 operating system would not now appear until late next year. The delay is apparently due to the firm having to wait on critical chipsets becoming available.

The delay could be highly damaging for the firm as it struggles to keep pace with rivals such as Apple.

The guidance for RIM’s current quarter – which includes the key holiday sales period – was also below par. The firm guided that profit will be between US$0.80 and US$0.95 per share, and said that sales will be between US$4.6 billion and US$4.9 billion. Analysts had projected profit of US$1.08 a share and sales of US$4.85 billion, according to Bloomberg data.

RIM said it expects BlackBerry shipments in the quarter to be between 11 million to 12 million. Analysts had projected 12.8 million units.

In a statement, RIM said that it “continues to have strong technology, unique service capabilities and a large installed base of customers, and we are more determined than ever to capitalise on our strengths to overcome the recent execution challenges surrounding product launches and the resulting financial performance.”

Its two co-CEOs, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, have agreed to take a pay-cut to just US$1 while they work through the problems. The firm faced renewed calls from shareholders to separate the roles of chairman and chief executive, which are currently held jointly by both Lazaridis and Balsillie.

State owned telco, Telecom Namibia has acquired its mobile network rival, Leo for an undisclosed amount and will fold the company into its own mobile services.

Leo was owned by Telecel Globe, a subsidiary of Orascom Telecom and was sold to a consortium of banks for US$60 million earlier this year.

Telecom Namibia chairman, Joseph Iita told local media that a formal announcement will be made later, but that the government is supportive of the deal.