MTN Group is reportedly mulling the possibility of taking a majority stake in Telkom – South Africa’s largest landline provider – in a bid to challenge the dominance of Vodacom, a Vodafone Group subsidiary.

According to a Bloomberg report, MTN has held “exploratory discussions” in recent months. Sources say a bid is not imminent, however, as a final decision has still to be made.

The report comes on the heels of a Telkom filing with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) saying that it remains in discussions with MTN South Africa “regarding the potential extension of their existing roaming agreement to include bilateral roaming and outsourcing of the operation of Telkom’s radio access network”.

The JSE filing goes on to say that if the deal is successfully concluded then it “may have a material effect on the price of Telkom’s securities”. The statement adds that shareholders would be kept updated.

A merger with Telkom, which is about 40 per cent owned by the state, would boost MTN’s ability to launch bundles of fixed and mobile services. Telkom may also see the attraction of a deal, since it only has a relatively small mobile business as South Africa’s fourth largest mobile operator.

Vodacom – the largest mobile operator in South Africa – is seeking antitrust approval to acquire broadband company Neotel, which is the country’s second-largest provider of fixed-line services behind Telkom.

Vodafone Egypt has scheduled a three-year investment programme of EGP9.5 billion (US$1.25 billion), with investments set to cover purchasing new equipment, modernising base stations and extending coverage, Vodafone Egypt CEO Ahmed Essam told Reuters.

Vodafone is a 55 per cent shareholder in the number one mobile player, which is threatened with new competition from Telecom Egypt.

The fixed incumbent has opted to sell its stake in Vodafone Egypt and go it alone, using one of the country’s unified licences, currently being finalised. Existing players in the mobile market are Mobinil and Etisalat, along with Vodafone.

The aim is to sell the Vodafone stake by the end of 2015. To this end, Telecom Egypt is mulling which of two sets of bankers will handle the sale, said Bloomberg.

Annual investments will represent “more than 30 per cent of annual revenues,” said Essam.

“By end of this fiscal year in March, we would have spent more than EGP3 billion, which equals one third of the allocated investments and also more than 30 per cent of our yearly revenues in Egypt,” he said.

Alcatel-Lucent has reported a Q414 profit attributable to equity holders of €271 million (US$307 million), more than doubled from €134 million a year earlier. Revenue of €3.68 billion was down six per cent on a comparable basis.

Q4 revenue excluding Managed Services declined three per cent year-on-year. At constant currency, revenue excluding Managed Services increased two per cent year-on-year.

Managed Services revenue halved to €96 million, reflecting the termination or restructuring of loss-making contracts.

CEO Michel Combes said that Alcatel-Lucent is “in a strong position to capitalise on profitable growth opportunities and will focus on operational excellence and quality of service.”

The bottom line improvement was said to reflect lower financial expenses and higher income tax benefits partially offset by higher restructuring expenses.

Q4 sales of wireless access products decreased nine per cent year-on-year to €1.21 billion, with sales driven by LTE capacity projects in the US and TD-LTE projects in China, “but at a more moderate pace compared with the first half of 2014,” said Combes.

The company also continued to diversify its LTE customer base, with 11 new wins in the fourth quarter, including AINMT in Scandinavia, and expanded its small cell presence, signing three new customers to take its total to 76.

The company improved profitability in its Core Networking segment, increasing to €288 million from €258 million on revenue that increased one per cent to €1.8 billion.

For the full-year, Alcatel-Lucent reported a loss of €118 million, compared with €1.3 billion in 2013, on revenue of €13.18 billion, down three per cent.

Excluding Managed Services, revenue was flat for the year. Profit was impacted by reduced financial expenses and higher income tax benefits in 2014, as well as an impairment charge in the prior-year period.

Full-year wireless revenue increased by four per cent to €4.69 billion.

Vodacom Group reported that revenue for the fiscal third-quarter to end-December 2014 dipped by 1.1 per cent, to ZAR19.99 billion (US$1.75 billion), while service revenue was down 2.7 per cent, to ZAR15.82 billion.

Sales in South Africa fell 3.1 per cent, to ZAR15.99 billion.

Vodacom partly attributed the year-on-year fall in group Q3 revenue to a halving of mobile termination rates (MTRs) in its home market, which came into effect in April 2014, but pointed the finger too at increased competition and more budget conscious consumers.

Strip out those domestic MTR cuts and Vodacom said group revenue would have risen 1.5 per cent, and that sales in its domestic market would have remained flat.

But MTRs were not solely to blame for a top-line decline.

Service revenue in South Africa fell 5.8 per cent, to ZAR11.86 billion, and would still have fallen – by 1.7 per cent – if MTR cuts were removed from the equation. Increased competition, and consumers keeping a more watchful eye on how much they are spending, is also taking its toll.

One Q3 upside for Vodacom was strong data growth. Group data revenue increased 19.9 per cent, to ZAR4.33 billion, representing 27.4 per cent of service revenue.

Group active customers increased 9.1 per cent, to 61.1 million, but active data customers grew 16.4 per cent, to 26.5 million

Vodacom said that its domestic LTE network now covers 34 per cent of the population (2,194 sites), while 3G population coverage is 94 per cent (8,407 sites).

Internationally, the operator said it had increased the number of 3G sites by 52.7 per cent in comparison to last year, and that the number of 2G sites was up 27.2 per cent.

International service revenue grew 7.6 per cent year-on-year, to ZAR3.98 billion, although quarter-on-quarter growth was slower (2.6 per cent).

Revenue from M-Pesa, the money transfer service, grew 28.2 per cent year-on-year, while the number of M-Pesa customers increased 29.7 per cent, to 7.6 million.

Joosub added that the operator is “continuing to work through the approvals process” for the acquisition of fixed-line provider Neotel in its domestic market.

Etisalat Group announced today the appointment of Faiez Awadh as the chief human resources officer of Mobily in Saudi Arabia.

Awadh brings to Mobily over 20 years of experience in human resources, and has a proven track record of effective leadership. He led Etisalat UAE’s HR department from 2009-2012 before joining the HR department of Etisalat Group as senior VP for HR Business Optimisation. In this position he directed and managed local and virtual teams spanning across Etisalat Group operations in the formulation and execution of projects related to human capital strategy, cultural change, global values roll-out, employee engagement, employee relations and international communications.

Last November, Mobily suspended its chief executive Khalid Al-Kaf and put his deputy Serkan Okandan in temporary charge pending an investigation into accounting errors.