Nigeria sees $6m Huawei injection

Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 announcement dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, Pinnacle's move for total control of Datacentrix and Naspers' disposal of its Polish interests were the main local ICT stories.

* A mixed trading update from Altron.
* The acquisition by privately-owned African software group Dynamic Technology Holdings of a 51% stake in Blue Pencil, an SAP services specialist headquartered in Johannesburg.
* The $3.253 billion acquisition by funds advised by private equity firms Cinven, Permira and Mid Europa of Naspers' 100% interest in Grupa Allegro and Ceneo, the leading online marketplace and price comparison businesses in Poland. Naspers acquired Allegro in 2008 for $1.485 billion.
* The R300 million investment by MTN in Uber-like Iran-based ride-sharing app Snapp.ir.
* The announcement that Pinnacle Holdings has offered to buy out the shares of Datacentrix it doesn't already own.
* New JSE cautionaries by Datacentrix and Pinnacle Holdings.

* Huawei launched an innovation and experience centre in Lagos, Nigeria's economic hub, with an investment of $6 million.
* Pan African telecommunication provider Gondwana International Networks (GIN) launched Source, a fully managed, virtual network satellite operator service, which is aimed at telecoms and Internet service providers. Source will be rolled out across Sub-Saharan Africa on the first Jupiter hub in Africa, which is owned and operated by GIN.
* The appointment of Maxim Frolov as managing director, Middle East, Turkey and Africa region, for Kaspersky Labs.

Facebook and Google have teamed up to build the longest and fastest Internet cable across the Pacific.

* The $1.65 billion acquisition by Canada's Brookfield Infrastructure Group of a 51% stake in Reliance Communications' tower assets.
* The acquisition by Delair-Tech of Trimble's unmanned aircraft system business.
* Descartes Systems Group bought Appterra, a provider of cloud-based B2B supply chain integration solutions.
* Envestnet purchased Wheelhouse Analytics, a technology company that provides analytics, mobile sales solutions and online education tools to financial advisors, asset managers and enterprises.
* The acquisition by Euronet Worldwide of UK-based ATM operator, YourCash.
* Google purchased FameBit, an online technology platform that connects brands with YouTube stars to create promotional content.
* Infineon Technologies bought Dutch electronics company Innoluce BV, a designer of miniature "lidar" laser-scanning modules that the German chip giant says can help it develop affordable sensor systems for driverless cars.
* The acquisition by L-3 Communications of Implant Sciences' explosive trace detection assets.
* Mentor Graphics bought Galaxy Semiconductor, a provider of test data analysis and defect reduction software for the semiconductor industry.
* The minority investment by Alibaba Group Holding (Alibaba Pictures) in Amblin, formerly DreamWorks Studios.
* Taiwan's Ennoconn, part of the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer Foxconn, has bought new shares in Austrian IT group S&T AG from a 10% capital increase and will further raise its holding to 29.4%. S&T said it would use the funds from the capital increase to buy a 29.9% stake in German computer maker Kontron.
* The $130 million investment by Softbank in US biotech start-up, Zymergen, the maker of 'designer microbes', the latest sign of AI and robotics invading natural sciences.
* The additional investment by Altice in SFR, bringing its stake in the latter to 82.9%.
* China's third-largest private equity firm CSC Group is helping to fund an artificial intelligence incubator in Britain, the latest sign of a boom in Chinese tech investments abroad and of the tapping of the UK's AI talent. The Chinese state-backed fund, which has more than $12 billion under management, has agreed to a multimillion-pound partnership with British start-up incubator Founders Factory, led by entrepreneur and investor Brent Hoberman.
* Facebook and Google have teamed up to build an undersea Internet cable between Los Angeles and Hong Kong, the longest and fastest Internet cable across the Pacific. It is being done with Pacific Light Data Communications and TE SubCom and is expected to go live in 2018.
* Samsung canned its combustible Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.
* Good quarterly numbers from Barracuda Networks (back in the black) and TSMC.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Infosys.
* Quarterly losses from ModusLink.
* The appointments of Navarro de Carvalho as CEO of Telefonica Brasil (as from 1 January); Yogesh Gupta as CEO of Progress Software; and Daniel Tsai as chairman of Taiwan Mobile.
* The resignation of Amos Genish, CEO of Telefonica Brasil, as from 31 December.
* The retirement of Phil Pead, CEO of Progress Software.
* The departure of Richard Tsai, chairman of Taiwan Mobile.

EMEA/Africa:
* According to Gartner, governments in the Middle East and North Africa are on pace to spend $11.7 billion on IT products and services in 2016. The forecast includes spending on internal services, software, IT services, data centre systems, devices and telecom services.
* According to IDC, IT infrastructure spending (server, disk storage and Ethernet switch) for public and private cloud in the EMEA region grew by 37.4% year-on-year to reach EUR1.4 billion in revenue in Q216.

Worldwide:
* According to Digitimes Research, global smartphone shipments are expected to grow 7.2% year-on-year to 1.42 billion in 2016 and another 7% to 1.52 billion units in 2017.
* Gartner research shows worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to decline 0.3% in 2016, to $64.6 billion. This is up slightly from the estimated 0.7% decline in their previous quarterly forecast. The market is expected to return to growth in 2017, increasing 7.4%.
* According to Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totalled 68.9 million units in Q316, a 5.7% decline from Q315. This was the eighth consecutive quarter of PC shipment decline, the longest duration of decline in the history of the PC industry.
* IDC says worldwide revenue for security-related hardware, software and services will grow from $73.7 billion in 2016 to $101.6 billion in 2020. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 8.3%, more than twice the rate of overall IT spending growth over the five-year forecast period.

* JSE All share index: Down 1%
* FTSE100: Down 0.4% (although an all-time high reached during the week)
* DAX: Up 0.9%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 0.6%
* S&P 500: Down 1%
* Nasdaq: Down 1.5%
* Nikkei225: Flat (marginally down)
* Hang Seng: Down 2.6%
* Shanghai: Up 2%

International:
* Buyout firm BC Partners acquiring a data centre business that CenturyLink is hoping to divest for more than $2.5 billion.
* Cellnex Telecom SA, which is bidding on French towers being sold by Antin Infrastructure Partners and also possibly buying a stake in Telefonica SA's infrastructure unit.

South Africa:
* Further news re the Cell C/Blue Label Telecoms deal.

Fortune magazine published its 2016 list of the 100 fastest growing companies in the world. Included in the list are:
3 Facebook
9 Ambarella
15 Skyworks Solutions
18 Super Micro Computers
20 Netflix
27 NetEase
28 Lam Research
35 Qualys
40 Vasco Data Security International
51 Orbotech
63 Manhattan Associates
64 Aspen Technology
70 Methode Electronics
75 Tyler Technologies
90 Sina
95 Total Systems Services