Ooredoo Oman has announced the appointment of Majid Al Marzooqi as chief governance officer & company secretary. In this role, Al Marzooqi will lead Ooredoo’s strategic efforts to comply with all applicable corporate codes, identifying and adopting essential organisational governance practices, and ensuring the efficient administration of the company. As Ooredoo’s former director of legal affairs & company secretary, Al Marzooqi brings a wealth of in-house experience to the position.

Al Marzooqi enters his new role with nearly 10 years of experience with Ooredoo after starting as the company’s legal counsel and quickly rising through the ranks.

Lenovo saw fiscal Q4 net income to March 31 fall 37 per cent to US$100 million year-on-year as it absorbed major acquisitions in the shape of Motorola Mobility and IBM’s low-end server business.

Strip out M&A charges, however, and net income was up 23 per cent, to US$194 million.

A greater share of mobile sales in group revenue, and continued strong growth outside China, show progress in Lenovo’s strategic direction, which includes becoming less dependent on PC sales.

Revenue for the three months to end-March was up 21 per cent, year-on-year, to US$11.3 billion. PCs accounted for 63 per cent, mobile 25 per cent, and nine per cent from the enterprise. The same quarter the year previously, PCs contributed 83 per cent of sales.

Aside from a strong performance in PCs – eight straight quarters as number one supplier – Lenovo also experienced increased market shares in both smartphones and tablets, up 1.2 and 1.3 percentage points respectively, year-on-year.

Citing IDC figures, Lenovo said it had a 5.6 per cent share of the global smartphone market at the end of March, and a 5.4 per cent share in the worldwide tablet market – performances that merited third spot in each market sector.

Helping mobile growth, of course, was Motorola. Motorola-related volumes were up 23.6 per cent, year-on-year.

Moreover, Lenovo saw five times growth in smartphone volumes outside China over the same period. More than half of Lenovo’s smartphone volume (56 per cent) now comes from outside its domestic market.

On a full-year basis, Lenovo could boast record sales of US$46.3 billion, up 20 per cent from its previous fiscal year.

There was record net income, too. Before M&A charges, that was up 22 per cent, to US$997 million.

UAE telco Du announced the appointment of Carlos Domingo in the newly created role of senior executive officer, New Business and Innovation.

As a member of the executive management team, Domingo’s responsibilities will include leading the development and execution of Du’s new business and innovation strategies, to foster a connected society and empower business acumen within leaders in the company.

Domingo joins Du from Mobily where he managed digital services, alliances, and partnerships, product development, analytics and big data department. Prior to that he held the position of CEO of New Business and Innovation at Telefonica Digital and was CEO of Telefónica R&D, the global innovation and R&D arm of the Telefónica Group.

Vodafone reported that in fiscal Q4 to March 31, 2015, the telco company returned to organic service revenue growth, albeit by a slim 0.1 percent, after 10 quarters of shrinkage. Weakness in Europe was offset by strong growth in its Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific (AMAP) region.

It comes as the telco reported a profit of £5.92 billion (US$9.22 billion), down 90 per cent year-on-year from £59.42 billion, on revenue from continuing operations of £42.23 billion, up 10.1 per cent year-on-year.

Its prior-year profit benefitted from a £48.12 billion gain from discontinued operations, related to its exit of the Verizon Wireless business in the US.

Profit from continuing operations of £5.86 billion was down from £11.31 billion, with the prior-year period benefitting from a significant income tax credit uplift.

Group service revenue of £38.5 billion was up 9.4 per cent year-on-year. Growth in Europe of 15 per cent to £25.97 billion was offset by a 0.8 per cent decline in AMAP to £12.04 billion although on an organic basis (taking into account M&A and foreign exchange changes) the picture was reversed, with a decline of 4.7 per cent in Europe, and an increase of 5.8 per cent in AMAP.

The telco has spent the last 12 months investing in speeding up its network and boosting coverage.

Vodafone remained cautious in its outlook, warning that it would continue to invest in its network this year. It forecast core earnings in the year ahead would be in the same region as this financial year, of between £11.5 billion and £12 billion.

On a group level the company has 20.2 million 4G subscribers in 18 markets.

Bharti Airtel has secured financing of up to US$2.5 billion from China Development Bank (CDB) and Commercial Bank of China.

CDB is reported to have put up US$2 billion in credit, with a further US$500 million coming through from Commercial Bank of China.

According to an Airtel statement, its agreement with CDB represents the single largest bilateral commitment by the bank to an Indian company, and its largest to any telecom operator globally.

The funds are still subject to final approval, and Airtel will be able to draw on them over a long period of time, with loan maturities extended up to nine years.

Airtel is forecast to count over 250 million total mobile connections by the end of 2016, maintaining its position as the country’s largest operator.

Earlier this year, Airtel also announced an agreement with China Mobile to collaborate on the growth of 4G, while working on a joint strategy for procurement of 4G devices, including smartphones. The company already has existing network equipment deals with Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE.