Zain has reported that its customer base rose by 20 per cent compared to the previous year, to end March at 37.6 million. However, revenues were up by just one per cent at KWD324.4 million (US$1.16 billion), although net profit surged by 40 per cent to KWD69.9 million.

Zain’s consolidated EBITDA reached KWD 147.7 million, up 10 per cent year-on-year, reflecting an EBITDA margin of 46 per cent.

Notable developments in the period included growth in Zain Sudan, which serves 10.65 million customers (up 21 per cent) and attaining a 13 per cent revenue increase in local SDG currency; and the launch of HSPA+ launch in Jordan, which saw 100,000 broadband customers added within a month.

France Telecom-Orange has reported that first-quarter revenues dropped by 1.4 per cent to €11.23 billion (US$16.65 billion) as regulatory changes hit the company. The first quarter results are in line with the group’s guidance for 2011.

Group customers totalled 215.9 million at March 31, 2011, a seven per cent year-on-year increase on a comparable basis, led by 25 per cent mobile growth in Africa and the Middle East.

Restated EBITDA was down slightly at €3.734 billion. The EBITDA margin was 33.3 per cent, down 1.3 percentage points versus the first quarter of 2010, notably due to the unfavourable impact of sales tax changes in France.

The company does not announce a net profit figure for the quarterly results.

CAPEX was equal to 9.6 per cent of revenues, representing €1.081 billion in investments, in line with the target CAPEX rate of about 13 per cent for the year.

"In France, the group successfully overcame increased market turbulence and regulatory changes – most notably following the increase in VAT – with significant gains in the ADSL market thanks to the success of the Open quadruple play offer,” commented Stéphane Richard, chairman and CEO of France Telecom-Orange. “The group was also able to address difficult conditions in Egypt, Côte d’Ivoire and Tunisia. The group performed very well in Spain, with revenues growing four per cent, as well as in the continually improving enterprise market."

India’s telecom regulator, TRAI has reported that the number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 846.32 million at the end of March 2011 from 826.25 million at the end of February 2011, reflecting a growth rate of 2.43 per cent month-on-month.

The share of urban subscribers declined to 66.65 per cent from 66.72 per cent, with the share of rural subscribers reaching 33.35 per cent at the end of March. Overall teledensity in India reached 70.89.

The country’s total wireless subscriber base reached 811.59 million at the end of March 2011, registering a growth of 2.55 per cent month-on-month.

Mobile number portability requests increased from 3.83 million subscribers at the end of February 2011 to 6.4 million subscribers at the end of March 2011.

Econet Wireless Zimbabwe said full-year profits increased by 25 per cent to US$141 million for the year ended February 28, 2011.

Revenues rose faster, by 36 per cent to US$494 million as it posted a strong growth in its subscriber base. The company said it invested US$270 million in its network, in the form of vendor financed deals with Ericsson and ZTE.

Econet claimed its base grew by 55 per cent to 5.5 million.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Motorola Solutions jointly announced that NSN has completed its acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ Networks assets paying US$975 million in cash. As of April 30 2011, responsibility for supporting customers of Motorola Solutions’ GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, WiMAX and LTE products and services transfers to Nokia Siemens Networks.

“The people, customers and technology we’ve acquired greatly complement our existing business by taking us into new markets and broadening our market share,” said Rajeev Suri, CEO of NSN. “Our combined knowledge and experience will provide our newly expanded customer base with the means to grow by providing greater value to their subscribers.”

“Motorola Solutions is pleased to complete this transaction to combine our Networks team with an industry leader,” said Greg Brown, president and CEO, Motorola Solutions. “This is great news for our customers, our investors and our people and will allow Motorola Solutions to further sharpen our strategic focus on providing mission-critical solutions for our government and enterprise customers."

Based on revenue, the addition of Motorola Solutions’ Networks assets makes NSN the third largest wireless infrastructure vendor in the US and the leading non-Japanese wireless vendor in Japan. In addition, the acquisition reinforces NSN’s position as the world’s second largest wireless infrastructure and services provider.

As part of the deal, responsibility for supporting 50 operators across 52 countries, as well as approximately 6,900 employees, will transfer to NSN. In addition, NSN is acquiring a number of research and development facilities including sites in the US, China, Russia, India and the UK.

NSN has been hugely frustrated in its attempt to acquire Motorola’s Networks assets, having initially given guidance that it expected the transaction to have closed by the end of 2010. However, the transaction did not receive regulatory approval from the Anti-Monopoly Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce of China, with reports surfacing last month that NSN was seeking to renegotiate the terms of its US$1.2 billion acquisition.

One suggestion had been that NSN would exclude Motorola’s GSM unit from the acquisition and renegotiate the price accordingly in order to win antitrust approval by the Chinese government.