US media landscape sees mega shake-up

The massive AT&T/Time Warner deal dominated the international ICT market last week. At home, the 'release' of Cell C's financial results for the first time was the main local ICT focus.

* Good interim numbers from Cell C, with revenue up 16% and back in the black.
* Mediocre interim numbers from Datatec, with revenue down 7.6% and profit down 19.2%.
* An interim loss form Altron, although revenue up 10.1%.
* A positive trading update from ISA.
* The acquisition by Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip (MMYT) of Naspers' Indian travel business, Ibibo Group. The new group under MMYT is one of the largest travel groups in India. Naspers and Tencent will become the single largest shareholder in MMYT, owning a 40% stake.
* The acquisition by Vumatel of fibre-to-the-home company Fibrehoods.
* Blue Turtle and Cybereason announced a strategic partnership to meet increased demand for endpoint protection in SA.
* The announcement of new social media platform Gather Online in Australia and SA, which is attempting to steal market share from established players such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Founded by South Africans, Gather Online was launched three months ago after being in incubation for the past couple of years, with the original idea coming from South African-born David Price, who is group CEO and now based in Australia.
* A withdrawn JSE cautionary by Blue Label Telecoms.

* Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Misr have signed licensing agreements for the operation of 4G mobile broadband networks in Egypt; deals that will allow the country to introduce long-delayed high-speed telecoms services.

Worldwide notebook shipments are expected to drop 7.2% year-on-year to reach less than 150 million units in 2016.

* The $85.4 billion acquisition by AT&T of Time Warner, in a deal that will create a huge entertainment giant.
* The acquisition by Cisco of Worklife, a virtual meeting provider.
* The $763.5 million purchase by Liberty Global of the cable business of Multimedia Polska (Poland).
* The £29 million (99%) acquisition by Ooredoo Kuwait of ISP FASTtelco (Kuwait).
* The EUR14.4 million acquisition by T-Systems Hungary of ServerInfo-Ingatlan, the property that houses the former's largest data centre, from the WING Group.
* Wipro's $500 million purchase of Appirio, a cloud services company.
* T-Mobile US agreed to pay $48 million to resolve a federal probe into whether it adequately disclosed speed and data restrictions for its "unlimited" data plan for subscribers.
* Pure Storage, a chief rival of EMC, has agreed to pay Dell Technologies $30 million to settle legal disputes between EMC and the company that started years before the Dell-EMC merger.
* Alibaba Group plans to raise about $1 billion to fund the expansion of its local-services platform, Koubei, which could value the venture at nearly $8 billion.
* Vonage, a provider of cloud communications services for business, was recently granted 19 new patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The company now owns 132 US patents, with more than 200 US patent applications pending, along with many foreign patents and pending applications in jurisdictions worldwide.
* Very good quarterly figures from Netflix.
* Good quarterly numbers from Alliance Data Systems, Amphenol, ASML Holding NV, Celestica, KLA-Tencor and Xilinx.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Adtran, Citrix Systems, DST Systems, Euronet Worldwide, Intel, Lam Research, Linear Technology, Manhattan Associates, PayPal, Snap-On and Yahoo.
* Satisfactory nine-month figures from China Mobile and TXC (Taiwan).
* Mediocre quarterly results from Benchmark Electronics, Cree (although back in the black), IBM and Verizon Communications.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Crown Castle International, with revenue up but profit down; eBay, with revenue up but profit down; Laird (UK), with revenue up but profit down; Maxim Integrated Products, with revenue down but back in the black; Microsoft, with revenue up but profit down; Rogers Communications, with revenue up but profit down; SAP, with revenue up but profit down; Seagate Technology, with revenue down but profit up; Wipro, with revenue up but profit down; WNS Holdings, with revenue up but profit down; and, Zain Saudi Arabia, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed nine-month figures from China Unicom, with revenue up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from AMD, Ericsson, NetSuite, Proofpoint, Sprint, Syntel and Telia.
* The appointments of Petter-Borre Furberg as interim CEO of Grameenphone; J"orgen Latte as acting CEO of Ooredoo Oman; and Joseph Natale as CEO and president of Rogers Communications.
* The resignations of Guy Laurence, CEO of Rogers Communications; Rajiv Sethi, CEO of Grameenphone; and Greg Young, CEO of Ooredoo Oman.

EMEA/Africa:
* According to IDC, PC shipments in the EMEA region performed above expectations, reaching 17.9 million units and posting a 3.3% year-on-year decrease in Q316.

Worldwide:
* According to Digitimes Research, worldwide notebook shipments are expected to drop 7.2% year-on-year to reach less than 150 million units in 2016 because Microsoft's free Windows 10 upgrade caused many consumers to postpone their new PC purchasing plans, with Apple's late release of its new MacBooks being another reason for the decline. But in 2017, the decline is expected to be much smaller at only 0.2%, with shipments coming to around 146 million units.
* According to Digitimes Research, worldwide notebook shipments (not including two-in-one devices) increased 8.6% sequentially in the third quarter thanks to growing demand from the enterprise sector, vendors preparing for the year-end holidays, and increasing Chromebook shipments. The third-quarter shipments were down 4.1% year-on-year.
* Global shipments of large (9-inch and above) TFT-LCD panels will increase from 673.37 million panels in 2016 to 684.60 million units in 2021, with a CAGR of 0.3% for the five-year period, says Digitimes Research.
* According to Gartner, worldwide IT spending is forecast to reach $3.5 trillion in 2017, up 2.9% from the 2016 estimated spending of $3.4 trillion.

* JSE All share index: Up 0.9%
* FTSE100: Flat (marginally up)
* DAX: Up 1.2%
* NYSE (Dow): Flat (marginally up)
* S&P 500: Up 0.4%
* Nasdaq: Up 0.8%
* Nikkei225: Up 1.9%
* Hang Seng: Up 0.6%
* Shanghai: Up 0.9%

International:
* Qualcomm taking over NXP Semiconductor in a deal valued at $37 billion.

Africa:
* Developments re the allegation that MTN took $14 billion out of Nigeria illegally.

South Africa:
* Further news re Stella and Prescient.

Global Telecoms Business has published its latest annual list of the 100 most powerful people in telecoms. Included in the list are:

* Mukesh Ambani, MD of Reliance Jio; Masayoshi Sun, CEO of Softbank; and Hiroo Unoura, CEO of NTT, from the Asia Pacific operators list.
* Lowell McAdam, chairman and CEO of Verizon; Thomas Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications; and Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T, from the North America operators list.
* Colm Delves, CEO of Digicel; John Reid, CEO of Cable & Wireless Communications; and Carlos Slim, chairman and CEO of America Movil, from the Latin America and Caribbean operators list.
* Cesar Alierta, CEO of Telefonica; Vittorio Coloa, CEO of Vodafone; and Stephane Richard, CEO of Orange, from the Europe operators list.
* Jean-Yves Charlier, CEO of VimpelCom, from the Russia and CIS operators list.
* Bob Colllymore, CEO of Safaricom; Nic Rudnick, CEO of Liquid Telecom; Shameel Joosub, CEO of Vodacom; and Rob Shuter, CEO of MTN Group, from the Africa operators list.
* Scott Gegenheimer, group CEO of Zain, from the ME operators list.
* JK Shin, CEO of Samsung Electronics; Zhao Xianming, president of ZTE; and Ren Zhengfei, president of Huawei, from the equipment and handset industry list.
* Eli Gelma, CEO of Amdocs, from the software and services vendor list.
* Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix; and Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, from the OTP providers list.