Vodafone Group takes Europe by storm

Paul Booth

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The cessation of ZTE's main business dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, Naspers' disposal of its stake in Flipkart was the main local story.

* Mixed Q3 figures from Net1 UEPS Technologies, with revenue up 10% but profit down 82.6%.
* Excellent interim numbers from Labat Africa, with revenue up 169.4% and profit up 341.2%.
* Good year-end figures from MiX Telematics, with revenue up 11.2% and profit up 49.3%.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Altron, with revenue up 6.1% and back in the black.
* A positive trading update from Huge Group.
* A mixed trading update from Datatec.
* Liquid Telecom has signed a strategic partnership with China Telecom Global, a subsidiary of China Telecom, which will see the companies collaborate to provide Africa and Asia with network solutions and services.
* Amazon-owned Ring, a smart home security solutions provider, has entered the South African market.
* Naspers has disposed of its entire 11.18% stake in Indian e-commerce company Flipkart to US-based retailer Walmart for $2.2 billion.
* Ansys is planning to change its name to Etion.
* The appointment of Dietlof Mare as CEO of Vumatel.
* The resignation of Niel Schoeman, CEO of Vumatel (stays on as executive chairman).

* Good year-end figures from Safaricom, with revenue up 10% and net income up 14.1%.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Telecom Egypt, with revenue up 13% but net profit down 48.1%.
* A positive trading update from MTN Nigeria.
* American Tower acquired 723 towers from Telkom Kenya.
* Japanese electric and electronics firm Furukawa Electric has opened its first fibre-optic cable production plant in MENA (Middle East North Africa) in Morocco's Tangier Automotive City.

* Adesto Technologies acquired Dublin-based S3 Semiconductors, a global supplier of mixed-signal and RF application specific integrated circuits and an extensive library of design IP, for $35 million.
* Alibaba bought Rocket Internet's south Asian e-commerce platform Daraz Group.
* Cohu purchased Xcerra, the owner of four businesses in the semiconductor and electronics industry.
* Google acquired Israel-based Velostrata, which specialises in helping companies move their internal corporate infrastructure to cloud providers.
* Infibeam, India's first listed e-commerce player, bought Snapdeal's wholly owned subsidiary Unicommerce, a cloud-based inventory management company.
* Nokia purchased software maker SpaceTime Insight, which industrial customers use to manage millions of devices and assets across their networks.
* Novanta acquired UK-based Zettlex Holdings, a privately owned company that manufactures sensors to measure position or speed, accurately and reliably, in harsh conditions.
* ON Semiconductor bought Ireland-based SensL Technologies, a technology leader specialising in silicon photomultipliers, Single Photon Avalanche Diode and LiDAR sensing products for automotive, medical, industrial and consumer markets.
* Global technology firm Synchronoss purchased software firm Honeybee, a provider of a range of digital solutions that focus on optimising the customer experience for telcos.
* Symphony Technology acquired Winshuttle, which enables people to integrate software provided by SAP SE with other applications to collect, validate and manage data.
* Vodafone Group bought Liberty Global's assets in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania for $21.8 billion.
* Walmart made a $16 billion investment (77%) in Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, the US retailer's largest deal to date, in an attempt to compete with rival Amazon.com in a key growth market.
* Cogint, a leading data-driven marketing services firm built on a pay-for-performance model, will change its name to Fluent.
* Lenovo Group will be replaced as a member of the Hang Seng Index as part of a rebalancing, effective from 4 June.
* ZTE's main business operations ceased due to a ban imposed by the US government, but the Chinese firm is trying to have the ban modified or reversed. President Donald Trump has since pledged to help ZTE "get back into business, fast", offering a job-saving concession to Beijing ahead of high-stakes trade talks this week.

ZTE's main business operations have ceased due to a ban imposed by the US government.

* Excellent quarterly results from Nvidia and Weibo.
* Very good quarterly figures from ASRock, Cable One, Envestnet (back in the black), EPAM Systems, ESI (back in the black), GoDaddy (back in the black), IEC Electronics (back in the black), JD.com, Perceptron (back in the black), Sapiens International, Sina and USA Technologies.
* Good quarterly numbers from Carbonite, Cohu, Diodes, EA, MAM Software Group, OpenText, Rimini Street (back in the black), TechTarget (back in the black), Tessco Technologies (back in the black), Telecom Argentina, Topco Technologies, Trimble, Ubiquiti Network and Zebra Technologies.
* Good year-end numbers from Softbank.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from AMC Networks, CA, Ceragon Networks (back in the black), Chicony Electronics, Compal, Everlight Electronics, Liberty Media, Microchip Technology, Nice, PLDT, Presidio (back in the black), SMIC, Vasco Data Security, Vishay Intertechnology (back in the black) and Vonage.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Adata, Applied Optoelectronics, CenturyLink, ChipMOS Technologies, Convergys, DISH Network, Fabrinet, GIS, Innolux, KYEC, Oclaro, Pegasystems and TowerJazz.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Amdocs, Casa Systems, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Ebix, ESCO Technologies, Information Services Group, j2 Global, Qisda, ScanSource, Sykes, Telus, TTEC Holdings and UTStarcom, with revenue up but net income down; and Alaska Communications (but back in the black), Amtech Systems (but back in the black), Harte-Hanks (but back in the black), HTC (but back in the black), and MTS Systems, with revenue down but net income up.
* Quarterly losses from Adesto Technologies, Allot Communications, Alteryx, Altice USA, Asure Software, Avaya, Avid Technology, BEST, Cardlytics, Cincinnati Bell, Conduent, Discovery, Dropbox, Echelon, EchoStar, eGain, eMagin, Entercom Communications, Entravision Communications, Everbridge, Everspin Technologies, Extreme Networks, ForeScout Technologies, Gartner, GCP Applied Technologies, GDS Holdings, GET, Groupon, Himax Technologies, Hortonworks, Identiv, Impinj, Infinera, Inovalon, Inseego, Kratos, Lextar Electronics, MaxLinear, Maxwell Technologies, MDC Partners, Microvision, NeoPhotonics, NII Holdings, Nuance Communications, One Stop Systems, PC-Tel, PDF Solutions, QuickLogic, Rambus, Rapid7, Renren, Roku, SailPoint Technologies, Smith Micro, Symantec, Synacor, Synaptics, Tactile Systems Technology, Talend, Team, Tetra Technologies, TiVo, Twilio, Upland Software, Veritone, WideOpenWest, Wix.com and WorldPay.
* The appointments of Ursula Burns as executive chairman of Veon (was chairman); Fulvio Conti as chairman of Telecom Italia; Amos Genish as CEO of Telecom Italia; H Lynn Moore Jr as CEO of Tyler Technologies; and John S Marr Jr as executive chairman of Tyler Technologies (was CEO).
* The resignation of Jean-Yves Charlier, CEO of Veon.
* A planned IPO from Chinese fashion-focused e-commerce platform Meili, targeted for the second half of this year.
* A very good IPO on the NYSE by China-based Huya, the operator of a video-game streaming platform.

Worldwide:
* Global server shipments (based on motherboards shipped) amounted to 3.4 million units in Q118, slightly down on quarter, but the shipments are expected to rise 9% sequentially in the second quarter.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.3%
* FTSE100: Up 2.1%
* DAX: Up 1.4%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 2.3%
* S&P 500: Up 2.4%
* Nasdaq: Up 2.7%
* Nikkei225: Up 1.3%
* Hang Seng: Up 4%
* Shanghai: Up 2.3%

International:
* Further developments regarding the future of ZTE.

South Africa:
* Further developments regarding MTN/Vodacom's various listings in Africa.

CRN has published its 15 Coolest System and Platform Vendors for 2018. They are, in alphabetical order:
* Amazon Web Services
* BlueData Software
* Cazena
* Cloudera
* Dell Technologies
* Google
* HPE
* Hortonworks
* IBM
* Infoworks
* MapR Technologies
* Micro Focus
* Oracle
* Snowflake Computing
* Teradata