Toshiba plays the field

The ongoing battle for Toshiba's chip business stole the limelight in the international ICT market last week.

At home, changes in the running of the Department of Communications was the main local story.

* Good interim numbers from Telemasters, with revenue up 16.6% and profit up 42.8%.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by Cognition Holdings.
* The South African government's direct and indirect shareholding in domestic network operator Telkom has reportedly dropped to below 50%, since the PIC's stake is now believed to be only 7.7185%. Thus, government's combined voting stake in Telkom may have dropped to below the threshold for guaranteeing control of the company.
* The appointments of Deborah de Siena as non-executive chairman of MICROmega Holdings; Ayanda Dlodlo as minister of the Department of Communications; and Thandi Mahambehlala as deputy minister of the Department of Communications.
* The resignation of Dave King, executive chairman of MICROmega Holdings.
* The departures of Faith Muthambi, minister of the Department of Communications; Hlengiwe Mkhize, deputy minister of the Department of Telecoms and Postal Services; and Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, deputy minister of the Department of Communications.

* Good year-end figures from Telekom Networks Malawi, with revenue up 13% and profit up 52%.
* A quarterly loss by Telecom Egypt.
* The appointment of Ahmed El Beheiry as CEO of Telecom Egypt.

The BT Group has been fined lb42 million for failing to install high-speed lines for businesses fast enough.

* Akamai acquired SOASTA, a leader in digital performance management.
* Canon Europe bought Kite.ly, the UK-based mobile e-commerce platform specialising in personalised print.
* Extreme Networks purchased Brocade's data centre networking business for $55 million.
* GE Aviation acquired Critical Technologies, branded as AirVault, a privately owned supplier of cloud-based digital records management.
* MaxLinear bought Exar, a designer and developer of high performance analogue mixed-signal ICs and sub-system solutions, for $700 million.
* A KKR-led consortium made an EUR876.66 million (10.3%) investment in Bharti Infratel.
* Tencent Holdings made a $1.78 billion (5%) investment in Tesla.
* A Chinese court has ruled in favour of Apple in a design patent dispute between Apple and Shenzhen Baili Marketing Services.
* Motorola Solutions has filed a patent infringement complaint with the US ITC against Hytera Communications Corporation (China).
* The BT Group has been fined £42 million for failing to install high-speed lines for businesses fast enough.
* Computer Sciences will replace Southwestern Energy in the S&P 500.
* Very good quarterly figures from SMIC.
* Good quarterly numbers from E Ink, Micro-Star International, Red Hat and Synnex.
* Good year-end numbers from Getac Technology, Microelectronics Technology and Sercomm.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Clevo, Document Security Systems (back in the black) and Paychex.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Huawei and Inventec.
* Mediocre year-end numbers from Compal Electronics.
* Mixed quarterly figures from FactSet Research Systems, with revenue up but profit down; and Verint, with revenue up but profit down.
* Mixed year-end figures from Foxconn, with revenue down but profit up; and Quanta Computer, with revenue down but profit up.
* Quarterly losses from Acer, BlackBerry, eMagin, Partner Communications, Progress Software, SecureWorks and Sigma Designs.
* A full-year loss from Elitegroup Computer Systems.
* The appointments of Ahmed Al Shamsi as acting CEO of Thuraya; and Robert Dutkowsky as chairman of Tech Data.
* An IPO filing for the NYSE from Cloudera, an enterprise big data company.

EMEA/Africa:
* The wearables growth story continues unabated in the MEA region, with shipments reaching an all-time high of 746 000 units in Q416, according to IDC. Shipments were up 29% year-on-year, spurred on by new launches from leading vendors and the entrance of new players to the market.

Worldwide:
* Global shipments of cellular IOT devices will grow at a CAGR of 22.7%, from 155.6 million units in 2016 to reach 530.1 million units in 2022, according to Berg Insight.
* The number of cellular M2M connections in the retail industry reached 33.7 million worldwide in 2016, according to Berg Insight.
* Worldwide revenue for security-related hardware, software and services will reach $81.7 billion in 2017, an increase of 8.2% over 2016, according to IDC. Global spending on security solutions is expected to accelerate slightly over the next several years, achieving a CAGR of 8.7% through 2020 when revenue will be nearly $105 billion.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.5%
* FTSE100: Down 0.2%
* DAX: Up 2.1% (highest weekend close since September 2015)
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.3%
* S&P 500: Up 0.8%
* Nasdaq: Up 1.4%
* Nikkei225: Down 1.8%
* Hang Seng: Down 1%
* Shanghai: Down 1.4%

International:
* The buyer of a majority stake in Toshiba's memory chip business. Several companies (about 10) have expressed an interest, including Silver Lake Partners and Broadcom; a consortium led by South Korea's SK Hynix; and Taiwan's Foxconn.

South Africa:
* Further developments regarding Cell C and Blue Label.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) - the global forum for intellectual property policy, services, information and co-operation - it was a record year for international patent applications in 2016.

China's ZTE overtook its cross-town rival Huawei Technologies as the biggest filer of international patent applications via WIPO in 2016, and US-based Qualcomm came in third.

Overall, applicants based in the US maintained their number one ranking for the 39th year running, accounting for roughly a quarter of the 233 000 applications filed under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 2016 - itself a 7.3% year-on-year increase. This was followed by applicants in Japan (19.4%) and China (18.5%), with the latter driving the overall growth in demand. Digital communications and computer technology showed the greatest activity by sector.

The top 10 filings were:

1. ZTE
2. Huawei Technologies
3. Qualcomm
4. Mitsubishi
5. LG Electronics
6. HP
7. Intel
8. BOE Technology Group
9. Samsung
10. Sony