Telkom SA finalizes sale of Nigerian CDMA network (South Africa)
Telkom South Africa is all set to take an exit from its troubled Nigerian subsidiary. It has secured a deal that entails the sale of Multi-Links to Helios Towers Nigeria for only $10 million.
Helios Towers had previously, filed lawsuits against Multi-links worth $250 million. Broken contracts were the basis of filing the lawsuits, one of which had incapacitated a recent attempt at selling the CDMA network to Visafone Communications for $52 million.
In retrospect, Telkom SA had purchased 75% stake in the Nigerian mobile network operator in 2007 at the cost of $280 million; eventually, acquired complete ownership by paying up $ 130 million.
Telkom stated that operational funding to Multi-Links will be continued so as to facilitate completion of the transaction. As a matter of fact, a recent decision to stop funding to Multi-Links had been reversed by the preceding announcement.
Another stipulation stands in this deal which provides for sharing profits if and when Helio Towers resells Multi-Links within the next three year. It is being seen as a likely scenario in view of the consolidation within Nigeria’s CDMA networks being critical to the industry so as to be able to compete with the primary players in the GSM domain.
Global subscriber base touches 150 million for the MTN Group (South Africa)
An announcement by the MTN Group states that its global subscriber base has surpassed the landmark of 150 million. An addition of 8.4 million customers during the initial four months of this year has largely been instrumental in pushing the numbers higher up. Apparently, the company’s presence in 21 countries helped.
On the other hand, the strengthening of the rand against the USD in addition to increased competition have been the major factors in posting only a marginal improvement as far as the Group revenue is concerned. Political unrest in Cote d` Ivoire has been instrumental in negatively impacted the group’s operational performance in the region; and to a less significant degree in Yemen and Syria.
In retrospect, if there had been no fluctuations in the exchange rate, revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization could have been considerably higher. However, voice revenue has been the primary driver of the total revenue as non voice revenue contribution maintains a steady improvement.
In view of the slower than planned implementation in Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana, MTN’s capital expenditure was inferior than expected till the end of April. However, a commitment by the company in terms of a considerable amount of the capital expenditure previously anticipated has been reported. These pending projects are touted to gain momentum in the second half of the year putting the full year capital expenditure to a great extent in line with the original guidance.
MTN South Africa is being credited for continuing with a sound financial performance in a relatively mature market. So far, it is being continually noted the operation’s EBITDA margin showing a positive upwardly trend; lower selling and distribution costs and somewhat the controlled network operating costs are reported to be main factors.
MTN Nigeria saw a slight decline in revenue growth as increase in usage was neutralized in part by the decreased tariffs, initially rolled out in the form of a revised tariff plan in February 2011. On the positive side, EBITDA margins were characterized by robust figures at the same level as those reported in 31 December 2010 in spite of the multitude of competitive and operational challenges.
MTN Irancell sustained a commendable performance. Its local currency revenue grew on the higher side of 20 percent in comparison to the same period the previous year. Similar EBITDA margins as those of 31 December 2010 were reported. According to MTN, backed by its current spell of initiatives, it is in good stead to capitalize on value accretive opportunities and at the same time, taking care of the many risks and challenges it stands to face. MTN keeps on bracing up for a mature and evolving industry that has become more competitive by way of leveraging its scale, operational capability and intellectual capacity.
At the end, the board has favored non-pursuance of the formation of a formalized subsidiary company board for the international operations at the current stage.
MTN to offer music across Africa
Music is big in Africa, and so is MTN – Africa’s leading mobile operator.
To capitalize on this competitive strength, MTN will now offer a much wider variety of world-class calibre music to our customers via our www.mtnplay.com digital content portal.
This follows the signing of an agreement with Content Connect Africa (CCA), an aggregator and provider of on and off-portal content.
CCA has a substantial catalogue of African musical content by artists in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa and Kenya – among others. It also has rights to exclusive video content featuring a host of popular African artists including Hugh Masekela, Fela Kuti and Busi Mhlongo.
Christian de Faria, MTN’s Senior Vice President for Commercial and Innovation, says there is a growing demand for digital content in Africa.
“More and more people in Africa and in the developed world are going online for entertainment content. With Africa’s mobile penetration now at approximately 50% of the 1 billion population, MTN sees a huge opportunity in music content being delivered on people’s mobile handsets via our www.mtnplay.com digital content portal,” says De Faria.
He explains that the African consumer, with an estimated spending power of $1.4 trillion by 2020, has become highly aspirational with a taste for world-class goods and services over the last few years.
Through its deal with CCA, MTN will offer a wide selection of music content which will be available as full tracks and CallerTunez.
CCA’s vast catalogue includes recording labels such as AS Entertainment, Godfather (specializing in Nigerian content), Al Records (East and West Africa content) and Soulistic Music which features top DJs like Black Coffee.
“Connect Africa is passionate about music from our continent. We have always strived to be ahead of the pack when it comes to representing African music, offering our artists and labels a bouquet of services from content to marketing, sponsorship and digital management. We are delighted to work with MTN Play to deliver this content to the rest of Africa” says Antos Stella, Managing Director for Content Connect Africa.
Omnitel start handset recycling with Greenfone (Lithuania)
Omnitel which operates in Lithuania, in cooperation with the company Greenfone, has introduced the ‘Handset For Other’ project.
The project allows customers to sell unused handsets online, using a special portal. The handsets will either be repaired and sold in third countries, or recycled.
The collected phones will travel to Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Ethiopia, Pakistan, China and Singapore, as well as t other Eastern European countries. Omnitel and Greenfone “project” to another phone will ensure that none of the collected phones from entering the landfill.
Lebara introduces summer promotion in Spain
Lebara Movil, which is a MVNO in Spain, has introduced a summer promotion. Lebara will lower international mobile call tariffs by an average of 41% until 31 July.
Lebara customers can make calls to 233 country destinations. Lebara will maintain its 1 cent per minute offer for calls to Argentina, Brasil, China, Colombia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Romania and Venezuela.
National calls to fixed and mobile numbers will be charged 9 cents per minute. SMS are charged US$0.15 to national numbers and US$0.23 to international numbers.
NCC installs 2,000 SIM registration centres (Nigeria)
The Nigerian Communications Commission has installed more than 2,000 centres for the ongoing SIM cards registration across the country.
According to executive Vice-Chairman Eugene Juwah, the registration exercise would end on 28 September, noting that subscribers who had already registered with their service providers did not need to repeat the exercise with the centres appointed by the regulatory agency.
He added that before the NCC entered the SIM registration exercise, the commission and the operators met with the National Security Adviser, and that it was discovered that the operators had only registered 8 million out of 89 million SIM cards, leaving a balance of 80 million.
At that stage it was decided that the operators and the NCC should begin to register existing SIM cards that had not been registered.
Vodafone extends World Calling Club promotion (Qatar)
Vodafone Qatar has extended its World Calling Club international call rates to more than 180 countries for just US$17.69 a minute until June 30.
All of the most popular calling destinations are included in this promotion, which included Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Iran, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America and Yemen.
Vodafone is also extending until 30 June its International Calling Card 25 offer that gives customers 51 minutes of talk time at a rate of US$0.13 a minute. The countries included in this are India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Thailand, Syria, Sudan, Turkey, Bahrain, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Visafone introduces Motorola Milestone (Nigeria)
Visafone, which operates in Nigeria, has announced that it has launched the Motorola Milestone XT800 on its network.
The XT800 is an Android smartphone powered by Motorola as part of the CDG’s Open Market Handset (OMH) initiative to improve the availability of the handset, operator flexibility and consumer choice in CDMA2000 devices. The handset will be exclusively available to Visafone’s customers in Nigeria.
OMH devices move operator-specific network configuration, service provisioning and subscriber-identity data onto an OMH Sim card rather than in the handset’s internal memory.
A device developed to the OMH standard is therefore designed independent of the operator, since it will work with any operator’s OMH Sim. This results in devices that can be sold on the “open market” and used by multiple operators, and provides consumers with a greater selection of CDMA2000 devices. The Motorola Milestone XT800 offers CDMA2000 1X and EV-DO Rev.
A connectivity in the 800 and 1900 MHz bands. It uses the Android 2.1 platform, which has access to over 350,000 applications for use on the handset’s WVGA zoom capacitive touch display, music player and video player. With this users can even access corporate e-mail over Wi-Fi and store images taken with its 5 megapixel camera on up to 32GB of expandable memory.
Nokia, Pearson, Airtel, Longman parter Lagos State on education content delivery to schools
The world’s leading manufacturer of mobile phones Nokia, the Pearson Foundation, Longman Nigeria Plc and giant telecommunications service provider, Airtel have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Lagos State Government on the delivery of quality education to public primary schools in the state.
The partnership involves the use of mobile phones to deliver and share high quality educational content in public schools where IT infrastructure may be limited. Known as the BridgeIT programme, teachers in select public schools have been trained on how to access and download a catalog of educational videos using a mobile application.
The videos are stored on a remote server and organized by subject and grade. By connecting the mobile phone to a TV or a projector, the teacher can play the videos to a class to illustrate any relevant topic in the school curriculum.
In addition, the programme offers teachers in public schools the opportunity to upgrade their skills through well structured professional development interventions.
Nokia is providing the technology, a mobile application known as Nokia Education Delivery (NED) while the Pearson Foundation, the charitable arm of the world’s largest learning company – Pearson – is providing the innovative educational content. Leading Nigerian telecom operator, Airtel Nigeria is providing the network coverage that will enable teachers download the videos to their phones, which are used as instructional materials, while Longman, Nigeria’s foremost education services company, will use its expertise in developing learning resources to support the planning and implementation of the programme.
The implementation of the scheme begins in Lagos in September with 30 schools in the pre-pilot phase. The Managing Director/CEO of Longman Nigeria Plc, a subsidiary of Pearson, Mr. Simon Terndrup explained that the BridgeIT programme will eventually be extended to hundreds of schools in the next 3 years. Mr Terndrup thanked the Lagos state government especially the Deputy Governor Mrs Sarah Sosan whose unwavering commitment has resulted in the signing of the MOU and reaffirmed the commitment of his organization to the intellectual development of the Nigerian child. He also pointed out that the initial focus of the programme would be the critical subjects of Mathematics, English Language and Science.
On his part, the Managing Director of Nokia West Africa, James Rutherfoord said Nokia is actively collaborating with communities around the world to create tangible social benefits. According to Mr. Rutherfoord,, Nokia is committed to enhancing the quality of life around the world by using mobile technology to stimulate social and economic development. In his words, “realizing that government alone cannot shoulder the Educational challenges of a developing country like Nigeria, Nokia feels a sense of responsibility to contribute its quota in helping to improve the delivery of public educational services by improving both the performance of students and the quality of teaching in our public schools.”
Mr Rutherfoord further disclosed that workshops have been conducted to train teachers in using the software to optimize their lesson plans using video content. He thanked Airtel for making it possible for the videos to be downloaded over its mobile network.
The CEO of Airtel Nigeria, Rajan Swaroop, expressed his company’s delight in being part of this remarkable partnership, which has the potential to transform lives of school children, the leaders of tomorrow.
He explained that the BridgeIT program was in line with Airtel’s Corporate Social Responsibility thrust, the Adopt- A-School Programme, which underscores the company’s commitment to providing the much-needed support for the improvement of the educational sector in the country as well as empowering children from poor homes with quality education.
Swaroop applauded the decision of Nokia and the Pearson Foundation to commence the BridgeIT initiative in Lagos noting that the Lagos has continued to live up to its name as the center of excellence with well-documented strides in the improvement of educational standards.
Recently, as part of the BridgeIT programme, sponsors of the project organized content mapping and lesson planning workshops for ministry officials and teachers. Participants at the event commended the BridgeIT programme as an innovative approach to tackling the challenges of public education in Nigeria.
Google introduces AdSense for mobile content in 15 countries
Google has introduced AdSense for mobile content in 15 countries. Following are the fifteen countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Slovenia, Thailand, and Turkey.
AdSense is an ad serving application run by Google Inc. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image, and video advertisements on their websites. These advertisements are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis.
For mobile websites, AdSense will automatically detect the type of phone viewing the site and deliver ads to match.
