Vodacom, the largest mobile operator in South Africa, reached an agreement with shareholders of Neotel – the second-largest provider of fixed-line services in the country – to take full ownership of the firm. The accepted offer gives Neotel an enterprise value (which includes debt) of ZAR7 billion (US$680 million).

Negotiations have been ongoing since last September, but the deal still needs regulatory approval before it can go ahead.

Vodacom, 65 per cent owned by Vodafone, agreed a cash payment to purchase Neotel.

India’s Tata Communications, which holds 66.5 per cent equity in the South African fixed-line provider, welcomed the terms of the arrangement.

Neotel has access to 2x12MHz at 1.8MHz; 2x5MHz at 800MHz; and 2x28MHz at 3.5GHz spectrum. Vodacom says the extra wireless frequencies will enable it to accelerate LTE rollout.

Vodacom expects to achieve cost and capex synergies with an annual run-rate of approximately ZAR300 million before integration costs in the full fifth year post completion (equivalent to a net present value of approximately ZAR1.5 billion after integration costs).

The savings are expected to come primarily from the joint utilisation of Neotel’s fibre network, the elimination of overlapping elements, joint procurement, and the combination of overlapping administrative functions.

Vodacom said it expects to close the deal before the end of its financial year (March 31, 2015).

Orange Group today announced that it has signed an agreement with Africell Holding for the sale of its majority stake in Orange Uganda.

The transaction is subject to approval from the relevant authorities. It will enable the company in Uganda to continue its development.

This transaction marks a new step in the Orange Group’s asset portfolio optimisation strategy for which Africa and the Middle-East remain a strategic priority.

Orange Uganda, which was created in 2008, is the third telecom operator in Uganda and had 620,000 clients at the end of December 2013.

Africell holds a leading market share in Gambia and Sierra Leone and was able to achieve a 20 per cent market share in the Democratic Republic of Congo in less than two years of operations facing well established operators. The group currently has over nine million active subscribers and forecasted to reach 11 million by year end.

Ericsson today announced the appointment of Anders Lindblad as head of the newly announced new business unit Cloud & IP. Lindblad, currently head of Ericsson’s region Middle East, steps into the role of senior vice president and head of business unit Cloud & IP, effective July 1, 2014.

In addition to Lindblad’s appointment, Ericsson also announced the appointment of Arun Bansal, currently head of Ericsson’s region South East Asia & Oceania, as senior vice president and head of business unit Radio.

The newly-created business unit Cloud & IP and business unit Radio divisions were formed by a split of the current business unit Networks, in a move to accelerate transformation and support growth. Both Lindblad and Bansal are tested leaders with long and solid technical and business experience, and extensive experience from key markets.

Lindblad and Bansal will remain members of Ericsson’s Global Leadership Team. Successors to them in their current roles will be announced separately.

The two new organizations will be effective on July 1, 2014 with the business unit management team and organizational structure in place.

Vodacom has reported its full-year financial results to end-March reflected a modest rise in revenues and profit.

Revenue was up by 8.3 per cent to ZAR62 billion (US$6 billion), while net profit rose by 3.3 per cent to ZAR13.7 billion. The company added seven million customers during the year, taking its total base to 57.5 million.

In South Africa, service revenue grew 0.3 per cent, an improvement on last year’s contraction.

Excluding lower mobile termination rates (MTRs), service revenue grew three per cent. The active customer base increased eight per cent to 31.5 million.

Service revenue from international operations grew by 23.4 per cent (18.4 per cent) and the active customer base increased 21.8 per cent to 26 million.

EBITDA grew by 55.4 per cent with margin expanding by six percentage points to 29.6 per cent. Data revenue more than doubled and the number of active data customers increased 86.4 per cent to 7.7 million, driven by data bundles.

Mobile financial services are also a strong growth driver with M-Pesa now contributing 18.8 per cent to service revenue in Tanzania.

Looking ahead, the company said that it will be increasing capital investment over the medium term to between 14 per cent and 17 per cent of Group revenue, although that it partially conditional on the outcome of MTR cuts in South Africa.

Apple and Google have settled a long running patent battle and said that they will now work together on some areas of patent reform.

The lawsuits date back to October 2010, and cover mobile technology patents used in Apple’s iPhone and Google-backed Android phones made by Motorola Mobility, now a Google subsidiary that is being sold to Lenovo.

Apple and Google jointly informed a federal appeals court that the cases should be dismissed.

However, while they have agreed to drop their lawsuits, they have not actually licensed the patents to each other yet, leading to the possibility of future action if they cannot agree on licensing terms.

The dismissal notice does allow for future lawsuits to be submitted on these patents.

Apple is still suing Samsung for infringing the same patents.