Vodafone Qatar today announced new appointments to the company’s management team.

Mahmud Awad has been appointed as chief business officer and Ramy Reyad as chief technology officer.

Mahmud Awad (right) has been appointed Vodafone Qatar’s chief business officer

Ramy Reyad (left) is Vodafone Qatar’s incoming chief technology officer

With 18 years of telecom experience, Awad joins Vodafone Qatar from UAE telco Du where he was the VP of corporate sales leading a sales team of 100 professionals. During his time at Du, Awad created new revenue streams, introduced more industry specific solutions and established an end-to-end solution sales approach. Awad has also held executive roles with Neoris, Al Wataniya Telecom and Nokia Solutions & Networks.

Reyad has over 15 years of experience in telecom and joins Vodafone Qatar from Mobilink. As Mobilink’s CTO he successfully transformed the Mobilink technical department to optimise cost and investment. He also directed critical technical projects and oversaw the rollout of new capacity projects. Reyad will lead Vodafone into its next phase including LTE 4G launch and ensuring Vodafone’s infrastructure supports Qatar’s knowledge based economy.

The Communications and Information Technology Commission of Saudi Arabia (CITC), is to issue a fresh tender for the country’s third MVNO licence after apparently cancelling the one granted to Axiom Telecom last year.

Axiom Telecom had a provisional licence to offer services over the Zain network, but in the middle of March this year when Virgin Mobile Middle East & Africa (VMMEA) and Jawraa Lebara were formally granted their licences, no such award was made to Axiom Telecom.

Axiom is reported to have said that it had been unable to submit a specific document in time before the regulator cancelled its licence, but would be bidding again in the new tender process.

VMMEA and Jawraa Lebara are looking to launch services in the coming couple of months, with VMMEA utilising capacity from Saudi Telecom, and Jawraa Lebara from Mobily.

Comm. previously reported that Axiom Telecom had not been officially granted its licence in March due to the consortium having faced issues with its shareholder structure.

Motorola Mobility has announced that its new president and COO will be Rick Osterloh with immediate effect.

He replaces Dennis Woodside, who announced that he was leaving the company just after Google announced its deal to sell the company to Lenovo.

Osterloh is a Silicon Valley veteran and a familiar face across Motorola, where he has been leading all product management and helping to define the ‘go forward’ strategy for the past two years. He first joined the company seven years ago when Motorola acquired Good, and he started Motorola down the Android path while managing product and engineering teams. Between stints, Osterloh joined Skype, where he oversaw design and product for more than 250 million monthly users until it was acquired by Microsoft.

Samsung published solid guidance for Q1 2014, against a backdrop of concern about slowed growth and intense competition in the smartphone market.

The company is anticipating operating profit of around KRW8.4 trillion (US$8 billion), on revenue of KRW53 trillion. This compares with Q1 2013 figures of KRW8.78 trillion and KRW52.87 trillion, respectively.

Samsung is facing an important second quarter, which will see availability of its next flagship smartphone, Galaxy S5.

At its unveiling, the South Korean company highlighted a focus on customer needs rather than technology innovation for its own sake, arguing that users prefer “durable design, a simple and yet powerful camera, faster and seamless connectivity, and a phone that can help them stay fit”.

Samsung is pricing the device around 10 per cent lower than the proceeding Galaxy S4, and has “dialled back” on its marketing efforts in order to protect margins.

While the Galaxy S5 launch comes mid-way between releases of Apple’s flagship iPhone, Samsung will not be without challengers in the premium devices space.

HTC recently announced its One (M8), the successor to its well-regarded One, and Sony’s Z2 is similarly well-specified.

HTC reported another loss-making quarter, as its sales for the three months to end-March came in below expectations, although it is forecasting an imminent return to profitability.

In a statement, the Taiwanese vendor said that it “expects to see a positive trajectory of its revenue in April from March, and forecasts quarter-on-quarter revenue growth in the second quarter, driven by strong market demand for its new products, including flagship HTC One (M8) and mid-tier flagship Desire 816”.

For the first quarter, HTC reported a net loss of TWD1.88 billion (US$62.15 million), compared with a modest prior-year profit of TWD85 million. Revenue was TWD33.12 billion, down 22.6 per cent from TWD42.79 billion in Q113.

Earlier this year, HTC said it was anticipating first-quarter sales of TWD34 billion to TWD36 billion, meaning the current numbers are below this guidance.

Despite a downward trend in sales, HTC has previously only reported one quarterly loss – in the third quarter of 2013.

HTC’s recently announced One (M8) has been largely well received, and is a successor to the similarly well-regarded One. But despite the critical success of its predecessor, HTC has still struggled to gain ground against high-end devices from rivals such as Apple (iPhone 5s) and Samsung (Galaxy S4).

And One (M8) will not have an easy debut, arriving on the market at roughly the same time as Samsung’s Galaxy S5.

HTC has also previously acknowledged its weakness in the mid-tier, a sector where it has previously performed well.