Three deals top $10bn mark

The three $10 billion+ deals - Charter Communications' proposed acquisition of TWC, Avago's acquisition of Broadcom, and Intel's acquisition of Altera - were the highlights of the international ICT market during the last three weeks.

At home, Net1's investment in Transact24, the proposed buyout of Digicore and the resignation of Craig Venter were the main local stories.

* Satisfactory interim numbers from Reunert, with revenue up 6.9% and profit up 21.1%.
* Mixed interim numbers from Vodacom Group, with revenue up 2.1% but profit down 8.5%.
* Excellent year-end figures from Ansys, with revenue up over 200% and back in the black.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Huge Group, with revenue up (just) and profit flat (marginally down); and ISA, with revenue up 6.1% and profit up 15.9%.
* Mixed year-end figures from MICROmega Holdings, with revenue up 14.1% but profit down 7.9%; and MiX Telematics, with revenue up 9.3% but profit down 1.7%.
* Positive trading updates from Labat Africa.
* A negative trading update from Amecor.
* A mixed trading update from MTN.
* Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, has bought out SA's WordPress theme and plugin provider WooThemes.
* MICROmega Holdings purchased Aspirata for R41.8 million. Aspirata focuses on real-time, Web-based computerised audits.
* Nasdaq-listed Novatel Wireless proposed the R994 million acquisition of Digicore Holdings.
* AEEI (formerly Sekunjalo) increased its investment (R120 million) in Saab Grintek Defence, bringing its stake up to 25%.
* Net1 UEPS Technologies made a 43.88% investment in Transact24, a specialist Hong Kong-based payment services company.
* DVT has opened a testing hub in Cape Town.
* Renewed JSE cautionaries by Digicore, Labat Africa and MiX Telematics.
* The appointments of Cathy Smith as GM of Cisco SA; and Stephen Wu as CEO of Huawei SA.
* The resignations of Craig Venter, a director of Altron and CEO of Altron TMT; and Themba Phiri, DDG of the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Service.
* The retirement of Graham Wackrill, CEO of Metrofile (as of 31 March 2016).

* Mixed year-end figures from Econet Wireless, with revenue down but profit up.
* Apple acquired HotStop.com, a Nigerian maker of iOS and Android mobile location-orientated apps, for $1 billion.
* CEC Liquid Telecom bought Realtime Technology Alliance Africa, Zambia's second-largest ISP.
* EOH purchased Twenty Third Century Systems and its subsidiaries, a provider of complex IT solutions across Africa. The stakes range from 49% to 80% depending on the country.
* Millicom bought an 85% stake in Zanzibar Telecom (Zantel) from the Etisalat Group.
* The Tanzanian government acquired a 35% stake in Tanzania Telecommunications from Bharti Airtel, the current owner, for $7.07 million. There is an intention by the former to buy the remaining shares in the latter.
* Crystal Ventures will list Crystal Telecoms on the Rwandan stock exchange. The latter is a 20% stakeholder in MTN Rwandacell.
* Juniper Networks has opened an office in Kenya and is planning to also open one in Nigeria later this year.
* Accra will become the first Centre of Excellence in Africa with Microsoft CityNext applications.

* Adobe acquired Mixamo, a company that offers a 3D platform allowing designers to create and customise high quality 3D characters and animations and incorporate them into games in a simple and intuitive way.
* Altice (France) bought Suddenlink Communications, a US-based cable firm, for $6.4 billion (70%).
* Apple purchased Coherent Navigation, a GPS company, and Mataio, a German augmented reality firm.
* Avago acquired Broadcom for $37 billion. This is the largest merger of chipmakers and a deal that creates a new major player in the semiconductor industry.
* Bharti Enterprises bought Vodafone's stake in Bharti Airtel for $200 million.
* Comcast purchased TV ad-targeting firm Visible World.
* Charter Communications proposed a $56.7 billion acquisition of Times Warner Cable, in a deal that will be the subject of much scrutiny.
* Cisco bought Piston Cloud in a deal intended to bring OpenStack expertise to the private cloud sector.
* Deutsche Telekom purchased the 49% of Slovak Telecom it doesn't already own, in a deal worth EUR900 million.
* South Korean messaging app operator Daum Kakao Corporation acquired the social networking assets of US-based Path.
* Elbit Systems bought Nice Systems' cyber and intelligence division for $157.9 million.
* EMC purchased Virtustream, a data centre company and data centre software provider that has a strong focus on SAP hosting. The deal was worth $1.2 billion.
* Equinix acquired UK-based Telecity in a move that creates Europe's largest data centre player. The deal was worth £2.3 billion.
* F-Secure bought nSense, a Danish company that specialises in security consultation and vulnerability assessment.
* IBM purchased Blue Box in a deal intended to accelerate hybrid open clouds.
* Intel acquired Altera for $16.7 billion, the former's largest deal and another consolidation within the semiconductor industry.
* Jianguang Asset Management Company, a Chinese investment firm, bought NXP Semi's RF Power unit for $1.8 billion.
* Microsoft purchased 6Wunderkinder, a Berlin-based start-up behind the Wunderlist to-do list app.
* Mitek acquired IDchecker, a global identity verification solutions provider.
* Nokia bought Eden Rock Communications, in a move designed to boost its offering in its mainstay telecoms network equipment business.
* Orient Hongtai, a Chinese investment management company, purchased China Mobile Games and Entertainment Group for $673 million.
* Salesforce.com acquired Tempo Al's Tempo, a smart calendar app.
* Sony bought Optical Archive, an optical data storage start-up.
* Tsinghua Holdings purchased 51% of HP's Chinese Data-Networking unit for $2.3 billion.
* Toshiba acquired a majority interest in its distributor, Tele Dynamics (Malaysia).
* Vox Media, owner of The Verge and other Web sites, bought Revere Digital, the company that owns technology news Web site Re/code.
* Xerox purchased Healthy Communities Institute, a company with a leading cloud platform that puts socioeconomic and community health information at the fingertips of hospitals, public health agencies and community coalitions.
* Alibaba made a $200 million investment (30% stake) in China Business News, a financial TV and newspaper company that is part of Shanghai Media Group.
* Dell Ventures and Intel Capital invested $45 million in DocuSign, a provider of a platform for tracking, authenticating and archiving digital documents.
* Softbank invested $1 billion in Coupang, a South Korean e-commerce player; and a further investment in Supercell, thus raising its stake in the latter from 51% to 73%.
* Apple has won a partial patent appeal victory over Samsung in its long-running patent dispute with the latter, which means up to 40% of the original $930 million verdict must be reconsidered.
* A Hawaii company is suing Oculus VR, saying the founder of the Facebook-owned virtual reality system misappropriated confidential information and proprietary technology.
* Cisco has lost a patent infringement case involving Commil USA.
* Jawbone has sued Fitbit on the eve of its IPO, with the fitness tracking device maker claiming the latter poached employees who took with them trade secrets costing it hundreds of millions of dollars.
* BlackBerry and Typo Products have agreed to settle a patent dispute over the sale of smartphone keyboards of a certain size.
* Five companies have agreed to pay $528 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit alleging CRT price fixing.
* CSC will split into two publicly traded companies; one to service its government business and the other its commercial business.
* HP's separation into two units will be effective from 1 November.
* Huawei has launched its Internet of things operating system that is designed to work exclusively with Internet-connected objects.
* Very good quarterly figures from Veeva Systems.
* Good quarterly numbers from Ciena (back in the black), Daktronics and salesforce.com (back in the black).
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Analog Devices, Brocade Communications Systems (back in the black), Descartes Systems Group, ePlus, QAD (back in the black), Verifone (back in the black) and ViaSat (back in the black)
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Lenovo
* Mediocre quarterly results from Agilent Technologies, HP, Intuit and OmniVision Technologies.
* Mediocre year-end numbers from Aveva, De La Rue, Marvell Technology Group and NetApp.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Autodesk, with revenue up but profit down; Synopsys, with revenue up but profit down; Tech Mahindra, with revenue up but profit down; Tech Data, with revenue down but profit up; and TiVo, with revenue up but profit down.
* Mixed year-end figures from Vodafone, with revenue up but profit down.
* Very poor quarterly figures from CSC and Verint.
* Quarterly losses from Acxiom, Eircom, Gilat Satellite Networks, Infoblox, Mentor Graphics, MTNL (India), Palo Alto Networks, Semtech, Splunk, Tata Teleservices and Workday.
* A full-year loss from Blinkx and Cable & Wireless Communications.
* The appointments of Nikesh Arora as chairman of Yahoo Japan; Stephen David as chairman of Checkpoint Systems; George Kurian as CEO of NetApp; Mike Nevens as chairman of NetApp; and Scott McNealy as CEO of Wayin, a start-up company that helps turn posts on social networks like Facebook and Twitter into marketing messages.
* The resignations of Tom Georgens, chairman and CEO of NetApp; and Masayoshi Son, chairman of Yahoo Japan.
* Planned IPOs on the LSE by Boston-based PureTech Health, a healthcare technology company, and Sophos, the UK-based security company.
* A planned IPO from Snapchat; but no timescale yet disclosed.
* A planned IPO in Hong Kong by Legend Holdings, the parent company of Lenovo.
* A planned IPO in Italy of the towers business of Telecom Italia.
* A planned IPO in Spain by Euskaltel, a fibre broadband telecoms group.
* IPO filings for Nasdaq from Alarm.com, which provides a cloud-based platform that allows home and business owners to control its security systems, lights and thermostats remotely, among other things; and AppFolio, a maker of online property management software.
* An IPO filing by SunGard, the financial software maker.
* An excellent IPO on the NYSE by Shopify, the Canadian e-commerce software maker.
* A good IPO on the NYSE by Evolent Health, a healthcare technology company.

EMEA/Africa:
* Governments in the Middle East and North Africa will spend $11.97 billion on IT products and services in 2015, an increase of 0.4% over 2014 spending of $11.92 billion, according to Gartner. This forecast includes spending on internal services, software, IT services, data centre, devices and telecoms services. Government comprises local government and national government. Telecoms services, which include fixed and mobile telecoms services, will be the largest overall spending category throughout the forecast period within the government sector. It is expected to be $5.2 billion in 2015, led by growth in mobile network services.
* According to IDC, 6.7 million personal and entry-level storage devices were shipped in EMEA in Q115, a decline of 8.8% from a year ago. Also, there was a decline in shipment values by 14.7% to $512 million.
* Despite increasing access to cheaper smartphones, Africa's mobile broadband penetration still remains below 20%, according to the ITU. Its ICT Facts & Figures report revealed the continent is the only region where mobile broadband access is less than 20%. It says Africa's mobile broadband subscriptions currently stand at 17.4%.

Charter Communications proposed a $56.7 billion acquisition of Times Warner Cable.

Worldwide:
* Global spending on IaaS is expected to reach almost US$16.5 billion in 2015, an increase of 32.8% from 2014, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2014 to 2019 forecast at 29.1%, according to Gartner.
* The worldwide hardcopy peripherals market experienced a small decline in 1Q15, with total unit shipments declining by 2.5% year-over-year to 25.8 million, according to IDC. The corresponding shipment value fell by 1.2% over the same period.
* An estimated 7.3 million Chromebooks will be sold this year, helped mainly by demand from the education industry, according to Gartner. This is an increase of 27% from 2014, when the education industry accounted for 72% of sales. Despite an interest in Chromebooks among SMEs, demand from businesses has yet to pick up.
* Worldwide industrial semiconductor revenue grew by 18% year-over-year in 2014, according to HIS Global. Industrial semiconductor revenue in 2014 totalled $40.4 billion, up from $34.3 billion in 2013. The year-over-year increase follows solid growth of 13% in 2013, a decline of 3% in 2012 and 12% growth in 2011.
* Smartphone shipments are expected to grow 11.3% in 2015, which is down from 27.6% in 2014, according to IDC. This is on par with IDC's previous smartphone forecast of 11.8% growth in 2015. While overall smartphone growth will continue to slow, many markets will experience robust growth in 2015 and beyond, and worldwide shipment volumes are forecast to reach 1.9 billion units annually by 2019.
* Factory revenue in the worldwide server market increased 17.2% year-over-year to $12.8 billion in Q1 2015, the fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, according to IDC. This quarter revenue grew in all form factors, including rack-optimised, blade, density-optimised, and tower. Worldwide server shipments totalled 2.3 million units in 1Q15, an increase of 8.4% when compared with the first quarter of 2014.
* Worldwide security software revenue totalled $21.4 billion in 2014, a 5.3% increase from 2013 revenue of $20.3 billion, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide shipments of tablets and two-in-one devices are forecast to reach 221.8 million units in 2015, a decline of 3.8% from 2014, according to IDC.
* More than 112 million non-smartphone connected devices (mobile PCs, tablets and mobile hotspot devices) will be sold worldwide in 2015, up 5.6% from last year, as demand for ubiquitous Internet access for mobile, social and information drives greater adoption, according to Gartner.
* In the first quarter of 2015, worldwide server shipments grew 13% year-over-year, while revenue increased 17.9%, according to Gartner.
* Worldwide spending on business process management (BPM) software is set to grow 4.4% to reach $2.7 billion in 2015, according to Gartner. As organisations are beginning their digital transformation - rethinking their business models and processes to address customer and constituent expectations - a shift towards using what they term an intelligent BPM suite, is under way.
* The worldwide Internet of things market will grow from $655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020, with a CAGR of 16.9%, according to IDC.

* JSE All share index: Down 4.3%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.4%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 2,3%
* S&P 500: Down 1.4%
* FTSE100: Down 2.2%
* Nikkei225: Up 0.4%
* Hang Seng: Down 2%
* Shanghai: Up 16.6% (highest weekend close since 2007)
* Top SA share movements over the past four weeks: Amecor (-22.6%), Ansys (+19%), Datacentrix (+13%), Digicor (+22.5%), Labat Africa (+332%), Morvest (+15%), Net 1 UEPS Technologies (+11.4%), Stella Capital Partners (+17.8%), Telkom SA (-11.2%) and Vodacom (-13%)

International:
* The outcome of the battle for Integrated Silicon Solution, with Cypress Semiconductor upping its offer in a scenario that also includes Uphill Investment Company as a contender.
* An IPO of Vodafone's Indian operation.
* The possible acquisition of an Israeli security company by Arm Holdings.
* A possible merger of Dish Network and T-Mobile.

Africa:
* Orange's expansion into North Africa.

South Africa:
* More news regarding the future of Cell C.

Gartner says emerging markets drove worldwide smartphone sales to 19.3% growth in Q1 2015, with end-user shipments of 336 million units. This growth was led by strong smartphone sales in emerging markets (excluding China); the fastest growing regions were emerging Asia/Pacific, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa. Due to these high-performing regions, the emerging markets achieved a 40% increase in sales during this time.

Other interesting changes in this report included:
* Apple taking the number one slot in China for the first time, ahead of Xiaomi.
* Greater China overtook North America as Apple's largest market.
* Lenovo (including Motorola), Huawei and LG Electronics took the number three, four and five slots behind Samsung and Apple.
* Worldwide mobile phone sales to end-users totalled 460.3 million units during the same period, a 2.5% increase from the same period in 2014. Indian and Chinese phone manufacturers increased their footprint during this time and six of them were in the top 10, ie, Huawei, Lenovo, Micromax, TCL Communication, Xiaomi and ZTE.