Qualcomm buys NXP Semiconductor

Qualcomm's acquisition of NXP Semiconductor dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, AEEI's investment in Puleng Technologies was one of the main stories.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from Cartrack Holdings, with revenue up 17.9% and profit up 1.3%.
* Positive trading updates from Ansys and Telkom SA.
* A mixed trading update from MTN Group.
* The suspension of the listing of Amecor shares on the JSE.
* African telecoms company Paratus Telecom acquired full-spectrum end-to-end connectivity solutions provider Maxwell Technology, providing an entry for the former into the local telecoms market for the first time.
* AEEI acquired (57%) Puleng Technologies, a South African user and data security practice that also provides converged infrastructure platforms. These allow core competitive advantages to be leveraged across customers' compute, storage, virtualisation and management teams.
* Rob Shuter will take up his position as group president and CEO of MTN from 13 March 2017.
* SAP has opened Africa's first SAP Co-Innovation Lab. With a strong focus on collaboration, the lab offers a hands-on environment for SAP to innovate jointly with software solution partners, system integrators and technology partners on current and future technologies.

* Satisfactory nine-month figures from Maroc Telecom, with revenue up 3.3% and profit up 3%.
* A new subsea broadband cable project, led by Angola, is set to provide a flood of international Internet bandwidth to countries on the west coast of Africa, including SA, when it goes live in mid-2018. The South Atlantic Cable System (Sacs), coupled with the already-under-construction Monet cable that will link S~ao Paulo in Brazil with Miami in the US next year, promises a faster and lower latency Internet route to Latin America and the US.
* Gijima Technologies in Namibia has undergone a massive transformation to become a new company, Veya Information Communication Technology, which is 100% Namibian-owned.

Vodafone has been fined lb4.6 million by the UK's regulator for "serious customer service failings".

* Alphabet (Google) acquired Eyefluence, a company that is working to enable eye movements to control digital screens.
* Analog Devices bought Innovasic, a provider of Deterministic Ethernet semiconductor and software solutions.
* Groupon purchased rival LivingSocial.
* An Australian-based Housatonic Partners-led consortium acquired Iron Mountain's Australian records management business (as it existed prior to the acquisition of Recall) for A$70 million.
* IBM bought Sanovi Technologies in a move designed to boost its disaster recovery services for hybrid cloud.
* Qualcomm purchased NXP Semiconductor for $47 billion, in yet another consolidation move within the semiconductor market and the largest deal in this sector.
* SS&C Technologies acquired Salentica, a global provider of financial services software and software-enabled services.
* Verisk Analytics bought Analyze Re, a software analytics provider for the reinsurance and insurance industries.
* Verizon purchased the technology of Web-video start-up Vessel.
* Vocera Communications acquired Extension Healthcare, a provider of clinical, event-driven communication and workflow collaboration software for the hospital environment. The deal was worth $55 million.
* Misys has ditched its planned IPO.
* Vodafone has been fined £4.6 million by the UK's regulator for "serious customer service failings".
* Excellent quarterly results from Cirrus Logic, CyberOptics (but back in the black), InterDigital, MagnaChip Semiconductor (back in the black) and Viad.
* Very good quarterly figures from Anixter International, CoreLogic, Mercury Systems and SS&C Technologies (back in the black).
* Good quarterly numbers from 8x8 (back in the black), Alphabet (Google), Amazon, America Movil (back in the black), American Tower, Arris International, AU Optronics (back in the black), Cabot Microelectronics, Comcast, Equifax, LinkedIn (back in the black), Macronix (back in the black), Nanya Technology, PDF Solutions, Quantum (back in the black), Rambus, Silicon Labs, T-Mobile US, Tyler Technologies and Vonage.
* Good nine-month numbers from Nuvoton Technologies.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from AT&T, ATN International, BT Group, CA Technologies, CACI International, Corning, Cypress Semiconductor (back in the black), EFI, F5 Networks, Garmin, Gemalto, Insight Enterprises, IPG Photonics, Iridium Communications, Juniper Networks, Logitech International, MicroStrategy, NCR, Sensata Technologies, Silicon Precision Industries, SK Hynix, Telefonica, Telefonica Brasil, Texas Instruments, United Microelectronics, VeriSign, VMware Winbond Electronics and Yandex.
* Satisfactory half-year figures from NTT DoCoMo.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Apple, Aspen Technology, Avnet, BE Semiconductor, Canon, II-VI, Interface, LG Display, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Teradata, Teradyne, Tessco Technologies, Vasco Data Security and VIA Technologies.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Akamai Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; AVX, with revenue up but profit down; Baidu, with revenue down but profit up; Cadence Design Systems, with revenue up but profit down; Chunghwa Telecoms, with revenue up but profit down; Cohu, with revenue up but profit down; Digital International, with revenue down but back in the black; Entegris, with revenue up but profit down; Fiserv, with revenue up but profit down; Forrester Research, with revenue up but profit down; Fortinet, with revenue up but profit down; Ingram Micro, with revenue down but profit up; Intelsat, with revenue down but profit up; Intersil, with revenue up but profit down; Kinsus Interconnect Technology, with revenue up but profit down; L-3 Comms, with revenue down but back in the black; Lexmark, with revenue down but back in the black; Mellanox Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; Millicom International Cellular, with revenue down but profit up; Netgear, with revenue down but profit up; NXP Semiconductor, with revenue up but profit down; Orange, with revenue up but profit down; PC-Tel, with revenue down but back in the black; Proximus, with revenue down but profit up; STMicroelectronics, with revenue up but profit down; Super Micro Computer, with revenue up but profit down; Telesat Holdings, with revenue down but back in the black; Total Systems Services, with revenue up but profit down; TTM Technologies, with revenue down but back in the black; Visteon, with revenue down but profit up; and Xerox, with revenue down but back in the black.
* Very poor quarterly figures from Synaptics.
* Quarterly losses from A10 Networks, Adesto Technologies, Applied Micro Circuits, Atlassian, CommVault Systems, Flex, FormFactor, Groupon, HTC, Infinera, Limelight Networks, Lumentum, MobileIron, NetScout Systems, Nokia, Pandora Media, Pixelworks, PTC, RadiSys, Sequans Communications, ServiceNow, Shutterfly, Sohu.com, Sonus Networks, Sprint, Twitter, Unisys, Vocera Communications, Weatherford and Western Digital.
* A six-month loss from Nintendo.
* The appointments of Borje Ekholm as CEO of Ericsson; and C Vijayakumar as CEO of HCL Technologies.
* A very good IPO on Nasdaq by Blackline, a provider of financial controls and automation software.
* A disappointing IPO on Nasdaq by Quantenna Comms, a provider of high-performance WiFi solutions.

EMEA/Africa:
* Sub-Saharan Africa's telecoms service market will be worth $51 billion in 2021(up from $41 billion in 2015), according to Analysys Mason, and the retail telecoms revenue in SSA will grow at a CAGR of 4.1% during 2015-2021 period.

Worldwide:
* Total smartwatch volumes reached 2.7 million units shipped in 3Q16, a decrease of 51.6% from the 5.6 million units in 3Q15, according to IDC.
* Vendors shipped a total of 362.9 million smartphones worldwide in 3Q16, according to IDC. Despite the recall of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7, volumes were up 1% compared to 3Q15, when vendors shipped 359.3 million units. IDC's totals for Samsung exclude Galaxy Note 7 shipments for both recalled and unsold devices in 3Q16.
* Widespread adoption of cognitive systems and artificial intelligence across a broad range of industries will drive worldwide revenue from nearly $8 billion in 2016 to more than $47 billion in 2020, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Down 1.6%
* FTSE100: Down 0.3%
* DAX: Down 0.1%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.1%
* S&P 500: Down 0.7%
* Nasdaq: Down 1.3%
* Nikkei225: Up 1.5%
* Hang Seng: Down 1.8%
* Shanghai: Up 0.4%

International:
* A possible merger between CenturyLink and Level 3 Communications.
* A possible IPO in 2017 from Palantir, the data analytics start-up.

Fortune magazine has published its "top 40 under 40" list for 2016. Included in the list are:

* 5: Thomas Saueressig, CIO at SAP
* 6: Jeff Lawson, co-founder and CEO of Twilio
* 8: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, co-founders and co-CEOs of Atlassian
* 10: Bill Ready, SVP and global head of product and engineering at PayPal
* 12: Ryan Smith, co-founder and CEO of Qualtrics
* 14: Bonzoma Saint John, head of global marketing, Apple Music at Apple
* 20: Matt Mullenweg, founder and CEO of Automattic
* 21: Fidji Simo, director of product at Facebook
* 24: Clay Bavor, VP of Virtual Reality at Google
* 31: Moxie Marlinspike, founder of Open Whisper Systems
* 34: April Underwood, VP of product at Slack