In the middle of March, Virgin Mobile Middle East and Africa (VMMEA) announced that Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC) had agreed to invest US$50 million in the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO); effectively marking VMMEA’s fourth round of funding since establishment in 2007. Comm. spoke to VMMEA founder and CEO Mikkel Vinter and GIC’s Mohamed Eissa about what use the funds would be put to, and what opportunities lie ahead for this business type in the region

Photo from the signing ceremony at the Virgin Group headquarter in London, sitting down form left-to-right:  Peter Langkilde (chairman, VMMEA), Mikkel Vinter (CEO and Founder, VMMEA), Shafic Ali (director Principal Investment, GIC) and Peter Stephens (partner and global head for Telecom and Media Investments, Virgin Group). Standing up form left-to-right: Fahad Al-Nusef (vice-president for Technology and Telecom Investments, GIC) and Mohamed Eissa (head of Technology and Telecom Investments, GIC)

Continue reading →

The liberalisation of many economies has resulted in numerous growth areas; and none of them has been more impressive than in the telecom sector, particularly the mobile business. However, the industry is witnessing challenges that can potentially slow the pace of further growth: eroded ARPU and increasing churn rates. Telecom operators are currently striving to work out differentiated offerings in an attempt to reduce their own subscriber defection and acquire new users from rivals

Mohamed Jamoussi is a senior technical consultant with Saudi Telecom (STC). The views expressed in this article are his own

Continue reading →

Northern Iraq-based communications provider, Regional Telecom is set to launch the country’s inaugural 4G LTE network by mid-May this year. It is a historic milestone in the development of Iraq’s communications infrastructure, and would not have been successful without the partnership with Alcatel-Lucent

Kawa Junad, the chairman of Regional Telecom, sees a number of public sector services such as health and education benefiting from the roll out of LTE in Northern Iraq

Continue reading →

BlackBerry said that it shipped one million devices powered by its BlackBerry 10 platform in its most recent quarter to March 2, as the recovering smartphone maker also reported a profit for the period. However, the numbers also showed many of the challenges still facing the company

BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins is excited about the new, dynamic culture at BlackBerry, where they are laser-focused on continuing to drive efficiency and improve the company’s profitability

Continue reading →

Ericsson ConsumerLab was formed in 1995 and has been studying people’s behaviours and values, including the way they act and think about ICT products and services ever since. Cecilia Atterwall, head of ConsumerLab talks to Comm. about the trends leading the modern-day mobile telecom industry

Continue reading →