Egypt’s state controlled landline operator Telecom Egypt is to pay six per cent of the revenues from its soon-to-launch MVNO to the telecom regulator as part of its licence fee.

The revelation of the additional costs on top of the EGP2.5 billion (US$360 million) MVNO licence fee were revealed by the head of the regulator, Hisham El-Alayleyi.

Telecom Egypt, which is 80 per cent owned by the government, and also owns a 45 per cent stake in Vodafone Egypt, is expected to launch its MVNO within the next few months.

It has also been given a year to resolve its stake in Vodafone, although the company has asked for two years, as that would then tie-in with the planned LTE spectrum auction.

ZTE has reported that its first quarter profit more than tripled as the company said it posted increased revenue amid growth in the global 4G market.

Net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was RMB622 million (US$100 million) in the first quarter, an increase of 203.5 per cent from a year earlier, and at the higher end of forecasts released by the company a couple of weeks ago.

Revenue rose 5.5 per cent to RMB 19.5 billion.

The company also forecast that first half profits will rise by between 158-223 per cent.

In a ceremony held at the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) this afternoon, the Saudi telecom regulator officially handed possession of the kingdom’s two MVNO licences to Virgin Mobile Middle East and Africa (VMMEA), and to Jawraa Lebara. A third licence, which had initially been won by Axiom Telecom and subsequently suspended, was not awarded.

People familiar with the situation suggest that the third licence will now be re-tendered in a process set to take place later in the year, and is only likely to be awarded late this year or early next depending on how long the CITC takes to undertake its review of the process. This would place the winning MVNO as well as its network operator partner – Zain Saudi Arabia – at a distinct disadvantage to the other two MVNOs, which are both preparing to launch commercial services as early as June.

VMMEA’s network partner is STC, while Jawraa Lebara’s is Mobily.

Telefonica is establishing its own mobile advertising exchange as a joint venture with Blackstone’s GSO Capital Partners (GSO).

The new ad agency, Axonix will be powered by technology acquired by Telefónica and Blackstone’s GSO Capital that underpinned the programmatic advertising platform, MobClix.

Simon Birkenhead has been appointed CEO of Axonix, leaving his current role as Telefónica’s director of Global Advertising Sales. The newly formed company will have a completely new executive management team and will operate globally with its headquarters in London.

Axonix will initially offer a self-service, mobile ad exchange platform to advertisers and publishers globally but with a specific focus on US and Europe, plus Latin America where Telefonica has local scale. Over 100 demand partners are already integrated into the Axonix platform.

Telefonica added that the use of its audience data, anonymised and aggregated, through a programmatic trading platform will enable Axonix to deliver improved ad relevancy and performance.

Zain Saudi Arabia reported a shrinking of its quarterly losses as the company improved its operating margins.

The operator reported narrowing its net loss for the period by 20 per cent year-on-year, to reach SAR318 million (US$85 million) at the end of the first quarter 2014, representing a 31 per cent fall in net loss quarter-on-quarter.

The company also succeeded in increasing its EBTIDA margin to 19 per cent up from 12 per cent during the same quarter in the previous year.

Zain Saudi Arabia reported a 68 per cent surge in data revenues during the first quarter year-on-year, and a 23 per cent increase as compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year.