Accenture in the buying mood

Accenture's fourth acquisition this year and several other small ones were the highlights of the international ICT market last week.

At home, another acquisition by EOH was one of the main local stories.

* Mixed Q3 numbers from MiX Telematics, with revenue up 6% but profit down 39.6%.
* Positive trading updates from ISA, Silverbridge Holdings and Vodacom.
* A mixed trading update from Jasco.
* Cardtronics acquired Spark ATM Systems, a Cape Town-based independent ATM deployer.
* Curve Group bought Paperless Software, the specialist developer of integrated solutions that cut down paper-based administration.
* EOH purchased the Cornastone Group of Companies, which includes providing niche support services to telecommunications networks, application managed services, and providing unique revenue management and revenue protection solutions to public sector customers.
* A renewed JSE cautionary by M-FiTec.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by Altron.
* The appointment of Simon Russell as Experian's market president for SA.

* The MTN Group will exchange its 51% interest in Nigeria Tower InterCo, the parent company of INT Towers (the Nigerian telecoms tower operator), for an additional shareholding in IHS Holding. As a result, MTN's economic interest in IHS Group will increase from about 15% to 29%.
* The appointments of Prasanta Das Sarma as MD of Airtel Kenya; Paul Fick as MD for Jasco's international business; Matthieu Galvani as CEO of Djezzy (Algeria); and Ismail Mapara as 3M's area business leader, Safety and Graphics Business Group for Central East Europe, Middle East and Africa.
* The departures of Tom Gutjahr, CEO of Djezzy; and Adil Youssefi, CEO of Airtel Kenya.

Vendors shipped 52.9 million tablets in Q416, a year-on-year decline of 20.1%.

* 3D Systems acquired Vertex-Global Holding, a provider of dental materials worldwide under the Vertex and NextDent brands.
* Accenture bought InvestTech Systems Consulting, a market leader in investment technology systems integration and consulting services, which supports many of the world's largest asset managers and investment service providers.
* Amkor Technology purchased NAMIUM, a provider of wafer-level fan-out semiconductor packaging solutions.
* Dish Network acquired certain EchoStar assets and operations, including its EchoStar Technologies hardware and software development group, its national and regional uplink business, its managed fibre backhaul network serving all US DMAs, and its OTT development group.
* Epsilon, a privately owned global communications service provider, bought colocation player Metcom Network Services.
* Keysight Technologies purchased Ixia, a data technology company, for $1.6 billion.
* HPE acquired Niara, a leader in the emerging user and entity behaviour analytics security market segment.
* Planet Labs bought Google's satellite imaging business, Terra Bella.
* Radware purchased Seculert, a provider of cyber security and application delivery solutions.
* Saudi Telecom acquired an unspecified number of telecom towers from rival fixed-line operator Etihad Atheeb Telecommunication Company (Go Telecom), for EUR57 million.
* Take Two Interactive Software bought Social Point, a Spanish free-to-play mobile game developer, for $250 million.
* The following patent and lawsuit activity:
* CommScope, a global leader in infrastructure solutions for communications networks, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Clearfield, a fibre-optic manufacturer.
* Excellent quarterly results from Facebook and Oclaro.
* Very good quarterly figures from Brooks Automation (back in the black), CACI International, Cirrus Logic and Kulicke & Soffa (but back in the black).
* Good quarterly numbers from Amazon, Entegris, Fortinet (back in the black), Pixelworks (back in the black), Rudolph Technologies, Sanmina, Silicon Labs and Tetra Tech.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Acxiom (back in the black), ADP, Anixter International, AudioCodes, BCE, CDK Global, ePlus, Exar (back in the black), Fair Isaac, Fingerprint Cards, Gartner, IXYS, Manhattan Associates, Plantronics, Sharp (back in the black), Siemens and Snap-On.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Belden, Black Box, Canon, CSG Systems International, Investment Technology Group, KPN, MicroStrategy, Nokia, Sony, TalkTalk, Teledyne Technologies, Vodafone, Xerox and Xplore Techologies.
* Mediocre year-end figures from SK Telecom.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Align Technology, with revenue up but profit down; Amdocs, with revenue up but profit down; Apple, with revenue up but profit down; Axcelis Technologies, with revenue down but profit up; Cadence Design Systems, with revenue up but profit down; CGI Group, with revenue down but profit up; Connection, with revenue up but profit down; CSC, with revenue up but profit down; Harris, with revenue down but back in the black; IDT, with revenue down but profit up; Intersil, with revenue up but profit down; Key Tronic, with revenue up but profit down; Kyocera, with revenue down but profit up; Mellanox Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; Motorola Solutions, with revenue up but profit down; NetScout Systems, with revenue down but back in the black; NXP Semiconductors, with revenue up but profit down; OpenText, with revenue up but profit down; Sensata Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; Shutterfly, with revenue up but profit down; Symantec, with revenue up but profit down; Tessco Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; and Viavi Solutions, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed nine-month figures from Nintendo, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from AMD, America Movil, Bottomline Technologies, Cavium, Cypress Semiconductor, EA, ESI, Extreme Networks, FireEye, GoPro, MACOM Technology Solutions, Mitek Systems, Pitney Bowes, Qorvo, Sprint and Weatherford International.
* A full-year loss from Rambus.
* The appointments of Ali Al-Zahid as CEO of Zain Iraq; Ian Dench as CEO of Ooredoo Oman; Charles Dunstone as executive chairman of TalkTalk (was chairman); Tristia Harrison as CEO of TalkTalk; Ian Livingstone as chairman of Dixons Carphone; Francois Locoh-Donou as CEO of F5 Networks; Jim Hagemann Snabe (ex-SAP) as chairman of Siemens (as of January 2018).
* The resignation of Dave DeWalt, executive chairman of FireEye.
* The retirement of Mark Durcan, CEO of Micron Technology.
* The departures of Gerhard Cromme, chairman of Siemens (as of January 2018); Dido Harding, CEO of TalkTalk; and Charles Dunstone, chairman of Dixons Carphone.
* The deaths of Sir Christopher Bland (ex-chairman of BT Group) and Masaya Nakamura, the "father of Pac-Man", who founded the Japanese videogame company behind the hit creature-gobbling game.
* An IPO filing for the NYSE from Snap, the owner of Snapchat.
* A planned IPO in Tokyo by ZMP, a Japanese robotics start-up.

* EMEA/Africa:
* The Egyptian ICT market will total $10.4 billion in 2017, ie, relatively flat, with ongoing government initiatives aimed at creating technology hubs and establishing public-private partnerships, according to IDC.

* Worldwide:
* Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 428.5 million units during 4Q16, resulting in a 6.9% year-on-year growth, according to IDC. For the full year, the worldwide smartphone market saw a total of 1.47 billion units shipped, marking the highest year of shipments on record.
* Vendors shipped 52.9 million tablets in Q416, a year-on-year decline of 20.1%, according to IDC. Similarly, shipments of 174.8 million units for the full year 2016 were down 15.6% compared to 2015.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.3%
* FTSE100: Up 0.1%
* DAX: Down 1.4%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 0.1%
* S&P 500: Up 0.1% (highest weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Up 0.1% (highest weekend close)
* Nikkei225: Down 2.8%
* Hang Seng: Down 1%
* Shanghai: Down 0.6%

* International:
* A possible merger of Vodafone's Indian operation and Idea Cellular.

* Africa:
* Mauritius's IOX building an international cable to link India to Africa.
* The listing of Vodacom Tanzania.

* South Africa:
* The suspension of Datacentrix shares on the JSE.

Forbes has just published its 2017 list of 'The World's Most Sustainable Companies'. The list, compiled using publicly available data, rates large firms on 14 key measures by evaluating their management of resources, finances and employees. From a technology perspective, they include:

* 3: Cisco
* 11: Dassault Systemes
* 18: Nokia
* 41: BT Group
* 52: Singapore Telecommunications
* 57: Accenture
* 63: Intel
* 65: LG Electronics
* 72: Ericsson
* 75: Microsoft
* 78: Analog Devices
* 82: HP
* 83: Telenor
* 84: Apple
* 86: NEC
* 87: Amadeus IT Group SA
* 94: Applied Materials
* 95: ASML
* 98: Lenovo
* 100: Autodesk