Saudi Telecom (STC) has signed an outsourced contract with India’s Aegis to manage its entire customer care operations including billing, directory enquiry, collection, and verification. Aegis and STC will form a joint venture, Call Centre Company (CCC), to provide customer care to STC’s 28 million customers in Saudi Arabia. Initially, STC will transfer 550 agents across two directory-assistance centres. Over the next 18-24 months, Aegis will re-badge the remaining 4,500 STC customer care agents.

STC will hold 50 per cent plus one share in CCC, and Aegis the remainder, with the Indian company having operational control and responsibilities. CCC will enjoy an exclusivity contract with STC. Besides targeting other customers in Saudi Arabia, CCC will also pursue customer care opportunities in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Aegis – a subsidiary of the Essar Group – currently serves over 150 clients through a network of 47 delivery centres spread across 11 countries. It has more than 50,000 employees and serves a diversified base of customers in banking, financial services, insurance, telecom, healthcare, travel & hospitality, consumer goods, retail, and technology.

Zain Group announced the launch of ‘Zain E-mal’ mobile wallet service, a mobile commerce service delivery platform. Initially launched to Zain customers in Jordan, the company will roll it out across its other Middle East operations during 2011.

Zain is the first mobile operator in the Middle East to launch a mobile commerce service of this magnitude, as ‘Zain E-mal’ gives Zain customers – prepaid and postpaid – an array of tools and solutions for many financial transactions. In the first phase of its launch, they include:

• Cash-in and Cash-out: Depositing and withdrawing money from their m-wallet
• Money transfer: Transferring money from one m-wallet to another m-wallet. The receiver could be either registered or non-registered with the service
• Bill payments: Using the m-wallet to settle any Zain customer bills whether it is their bill or others
• Airtime top-up: Using the m-wallet to recharge talk time on any Zain customer account

Later development phases of ‘Zain E-mal’ will see the service expand in scope to include payments at shopping outlets, bank transfers and more.

The launch of this service follows on from the successful roll-out of Zain’s ‘Zap’ mobile commerce service across Africa.

Energy-drinks company Red Bull is set to launch a branded mobile reseller service in South Africa, utilising Cell C’s network. The launch would be the country’s second ‘virtual’ operator behind Virgin Mobile, which also uses Cell C as its infrastructure backbone.

Red Bull Mobile is set to launch in the first quarter and Cell C is understood to be actively courting virtual operators interested in launching in South Africa. Well-placed sources close to Cell C are reported to have said that Red Bull Mobile will offer both voice and wireless broadband services.

Unlike Virgin Mobile, Cell C will not hold an equity stake in Red Bull Mobile. Cell C holds a 50 per cent stake in Virgin Mobile South Africa. However, Cell C is in the process of selling its stake in the Virgin Mobile business to mobile distributor Allied Mobile.

Red Bull has already launched virtual services in Switzerland, Hungary and its home market of Austria and has reportedly signed a deal to launch a similar product in Germany. South Africa will be the first country outside Europe where Red Bull Mobile will be launched.

China Unicom has issued a profits warning statement and has said that it now expects its net profit for 2010 to be more than halved compared to the previous year.

Although the operator’s revenue grew rapidly in 2010, the China Unicom says there is high pressure on its earning in 2010 due to the fast increase of depreciation and amortisation, networks, operations and support expenses, as well as selling expenses, particularly the 3G handset subsidy, in relation to the initial operation stage of the company’s 3G business.

The drop in profits compared to 2009 comes on top of the fact that 2009’s profits were themselves sharply down on 2008, by 73 per cent.

MTN has had its application for a 3G licence in Swaziland rejected by the Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC), which also managed the regulatory regime in the country.

SPTC did not say why the licence application was rejected. MTN Swaziland’s CEO, Ambrose Dlamini had said last year that the company was at an advanced stage in negotiations for a 3G licence and had hoped to have it awarded by the end of last year.

MTN has been lobbying for an independent regulator in Swaziland for some years, saying that the combination of telco and regulator causes obvious conflicts of interest. MTN previously dropped its objection to SPTC building a fixed wireless network, in exchange for the government pressing ahead with splitting the phone company from its regulatory role.

SPTC is also the majority shareholder of MTN Swaziland with a 51 per cent stake. Of the remainder, 30 per cent is owned by South Africa’s MTN and 19 per cent by the local Swaziland Empowerment group.