Sony Ericsson has reported that its third quarter sales fell marginally to €1.59 billion (US$2.19 billion) compared to €1.6 billion a year ago.

However, the company posted a zero profit figure, compared to a net profit of €49 million a year ago. This is an improvement on the loss of €50 million that the handset manufacturer reported in Q211.

The company shipped 9.5 million phones during the quarter, a nine per cent decrease year-on-year due to a decline in feature phone shipments, partially offset by an increase in smartphone shipments. The 25 per cent quarter-on-quarter increase was due to the higher volume of smartphones shipped.

The average selling price increased to €166 from €154. The year-on-year increase was due to the shift to smartphones and geographic mix despite a negative effect from foreign exchange rates. The sequential increase was due to product and geographic mix.

Sony Ericsson estimates that its share of the global Android-based smartphone market during the quarter was approximately 12 per cent in volume and 11 per cent in value.

The company maintained its forecast for modest industry growth in total units in the global handset market for 2011.

A report by South Africa based Standard Bank Group has estimated that mobile subscriptions in Africa will reach 800 million by 2015.

Simon Freemantle, an economist and author of the report said Africa had about 500 million mobile subscriptions in 2010, up from 15 million in 2000 and will hit 800 million by 2015.

He forecast that over the next five years East and Central Africa will enjoy the highest mobile subscription growth rates in the world, with three quarters of the increase expected to come from Uganda, Nigeria, Egypt, Tanzania, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Kenya and Ghana.

Freemantle said the five trends driving Africa’s economic growth include a larger, younger and more affluent population, Africa’s transformational urban swell, technology, the dormant resources potential and the deepening financial sector.

Informatica Qatar (iQ), an IT consulting firm and technology solutions provider that offers high-quality systems integration solutions, has announced that it has recently signed an agreement with Huawei to be the exclusive distributor and after-sales service provider in Qatar of Huawei mobile phones, including the Huawei IDEOS and the Huawei IDEOS X5.

iQ brings to the partnership its wide experience as a leading product distributor and service provider in the ICT sector, serving a wide range of telecom consumer markets in the region. The partnership is in line with iQ’s strategy to establish strategic alliances with leading global ICT companies and to reach out to more customers in the Middle East by expanding its portfolio of premium technology solutions.

Zain Saudi Arabia (Zain KSA) released its financial results for the third quarter of 2011, which the cellco says shows continued healthy growth in operational revenues and gross profit combined with further reduction of both operating and net losses.

Revenues in Q311 grew by eight per cent to more than SAR 1.794 billion (US$ 478 million), with the cellco achieving growth in gross profit, which increased by more than 22 per cent to exceed SAR 870 million. Accordingly, operating loss (EBIT) declined by more than six per cent to reach SAR 222 million.

The period also witnessed a reduction in net losses by more than 11 per cent, with the company recording a net loss of SAR 484 million.

The results come a day after the cellco announced that its former MD, Saad Al Barrak had resigned.

Zain Group has announced that the resignation of Saad Al Barrak, managing director and CEO of Zain Saudi Arabia was approved by the board of directors of Saudi Mobile Telecommunications Co. (Zain KSA) in its meeting held on October 11.

The Zain KSA board also announced the appointment of Badr Nasser Al-Kharafi as the replacement board member and also appointed current board member Khalid Al Omar as managing director and CEO with immediate effect. The appointment of Al-Kharafi will be formally ratified at the next Zain KSA general assembly.

Al Barrak’s resignation comes after Batelco and Kingdom Holding’s failed bid to acquire a 25 per cent stake in the Saudi cellco was announced last month.