Broadcom, Qualcomm dealt Trump card

Paul Booth.

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The blockage of Broadcom's bid for Qualcomm dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, Helios' IPO plan was the main local story.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from Metrofile, with revenue up 19.8% and profit up 6.3%.
* EOH is planning a major restructuring, which will result in the creation of two distinct businesses in the group. One will continue to trade under the EOH brand and the other will have its own brand and identity.
* Helios Towers is considering expanding its business into SA, as the pan-African tower company eyes a listing on the local bourse. Despite not currently having any operations in SA, the group plans to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in April.
* ThoughtWorks has quietly closed shop in SA, after its founder, Roy Singham, sold the company to London-based private equity firm, Apax Funds, in August last year.
* Oupa Mopaki, CEO of the Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority (MICT SETA), has been put on temporary suspension.
* The appointments of Asher Bohbot as non-executive chairman of EOH; and Vukani Mngxati as MD for Accenture SA.
* The resignation of Sandile DM Zungu, non-executive chairman of EOH.
* The departure of William Mzimba, MD of Accenture SA.
* The death of ICT industry veteran Brian Seligmann.

* Ghana's National Communications Authority formally notified Kasapa Telecom (Expresso) of its intention to terminate the company's mobile cellular licence.
* Helios Towers ditched its plans to launch an initial public offering in London, which was expected to value the business at about £2 billion.
* The appointments of Indi Siriniwasa as Trend Micro's VP for Sub-Saharan Africa; and Cathy Smith as MD of SAP Africa.
* The resignation of Cathy Smith as MD of Cisco Southern Africa.
* The departure of Claas Kuehnemann, acting-MD of SAP Africa (has moved elsewhere within SAP).

* Apple acquired Texture, a digital magazine service.
* Cognizant bought Bolder Healthcare Solutions, a privately held provider of revenue cycle management solutions to hospitals, physician practices and other specialist healthcare organisations in the US.
* CyberArk purchased privately held Vaultive, a cloud security provider.
* EPAM Systems acquired Continuum, an innovation design firm.
* GTT Communications bought Accelerated Connections, a Toronto-headquartered provider of managed networking, voice over IP and colocation services.
* Lumentum Holdings purchased Oclaro, a leader in optical components and modules for the long-haul, metro, and data centre markets, for $1.8 billion.
* Nutanix acquired Netsil, a provider of application discovery and operations management that enables state-of-the-art observability in modern distributed cloud environments.
* Palo Alto Networks bought Evident.io, a CIA-backed cloud services firm, for $300 million.
* Salesforce.com purchased B2B e-commerce software provider CloudCraze.
* SS&C Technologies Holdings acquired CACEIS North America, the fund administration business of CACEIS based in Toronto and New York.
* Taiwan-based IPC player Advantech made a 25% investment in Alitek, the largest channel distributor in Turkey.
* Singapore-based Broadcom expects to re-domicile to the US by 3 April 2018, and in addition, has withdrawn its bid for Qualcomm.
* Infosys intends to voluntarily delist its American Depositary Shares from the Euronext Paris and Euronext London exchanges.
* US president Donald Trump blocked Broadcom's proposed takeover of Qualcomm on national security grounds, ending what would have been the technology industry's biggest deal to date, amid concerns it would give China the upper hand in mobile communications.
* Very good quarterly figures from Broadcom.
* Good quarterly numbers from Adobe, Jabil.
* Good year-end numbers from ASMedia Technology.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Entravision Comms.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Chicony Electronics and Synnex.
* Mediocre quarterly results from ChipMOS Technologies.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Allied Motion Technologies and Formula Systems, with revenue up but net income down; and from PC-Tel (back in the black) and WideOpenWest, with revenue down but net income up.
* Mixed year-end figures from Adlink Technology, with revenue up but net income down.
* Quarterly losses from 3D Systems, Alaska Communications, Avid, Cogint, Coupa Software, Everspin Technologies, ExOne, GDS, GTx, Harte-Hanks, Information Services Group, MongoDB, Semtech, Smith Micro and TeleTech.
* The appointments of Thomas Barton as CEO of Tintri; and Glen Hawk as CEO of Lattice Semiconductor.
* The resignation of Sun Hongbin, chairman of Leshi Information & Technology Corporation.
* The retirement of Darin G Billerbeck, CEO of Lattice Semiconductor.
* A planned IPO from Lotte Data Communication Company, a unit of South Korea's Lotte Group.

Look out for France's finance minister Bruno Le Maire taking Alphabet and Apple to court for "abusive business practices".

EMEA/Africa:
* Africa's smartphone market experienced a quarter-on-quarter decline of 6.4% during Q4 2017, according to IDC. Smartphone shipments were down to 20.3 million units for the quarter. Year-on-year (YOY), this represents a 180% decline, meaning the YOY improvement seen in the previous quarter did not extend to the year's final and traditionally strongest quarter.

Worldwide:
* The value of worldwide infrastructure shipments, including servers, storage and networking products, reached a record $142 billion in 2017, up 7% on the previous year, according to Canalys.
* Worldwide spending on mobility solutions is forecast to grow 3.2% YOY in 2018, reaching more than $1 trillion, according to IDC. This growth is expected to continue through 2021, with spending on mobility-related hardware, software and services surpassing $1 trillion as the market achieves a five-year CAGR of 2.8%.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.8%
* FTSE100: Down 0.8%
* DAX: Up 0.3%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 1.5%
* S&P 500: Down 1.2%
* Nasdaq: Down 1%
* Nikkei225: Up 1%
* Hang Seng: Up 1.6%
* Shanghai: Down 1.1%

International:
* France's finance minister Bruno Le Maire taking Alphabet and Apple to court for "abusive business practices".
* E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding listing on a stock exchange in its home country.

South Africa:
* Further announcements from EOH regarding its restructuring.

The Africa Report 2018 listing of its 'Top 500 African Companies' was recently published. The list still doesn't have any IT companies outside of SA in its report, although there are several new African telecommunications entries. The list includes in its top 50:
* 7: MTN Group (was five)
* 15: Naspers (was 12)
* 16: Datatec (was 11)
* 17: Vodacom Group (was 20)
* 25: Vodacom SA (was 18)
* 32: Groupe Maroc Telecom (was 38)
* 33: MTN Nigeria (was 35)
* 40: MTN SA (was 48)
* 42: Telkom SA (was 44)
* 43: Global Telecom Holding (Egypt) (was 41)

New entrants include:
* 89: Ethio Telecom
* 156: 9mobile (ex-Etisalat Nigeria)
* 168: Zain Sudan
* 259: Vodacom Tanzania
* 272: Vodacom DRC
* 359: MTN Benin
* 404: MTN Congo
* 432: Vodacom Mocambique
* 449: Orange Tunisie
* 485: Orange Burkina Faso
* 491: Gabon Telecom