Angola sells 80% of Group Movicel
Friday, July 31st, 2009
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ngola government have given its approval to the sale of 80% stake in Movicel on Thursday, thus authorizing one of the country’s biggest post-war privatisations. Even though the statement issued for that purpose did mention neither the transaction amount nor the location of buyers, it highlighted that Movicell will be acquired by several investors as follows:
- Porturil-Investments will buy 40%
- Modus Comicare-Comunicacoes e Imagem Lda will hold 19%
- I pang-industria de Papel e Derivados will own 10%
- Lambda-Investment and Novatel S.A will together hold 11%
State-owned firms Angola Telecom and Correios Telegrafos de Angola will retain the remaining 20% according to the statement. It is important to notice here that Movicell the country’s second largest mobile operator accounts about 2.5 million subscribers on its CDMA-based network according to Dataxis Intelligence estimates as end of June 2009.
Sony Posts a 19.2% decline in the second quarter sales
Friday, July 31st, 2009
Sony reported a loss of $391 million for its fiscal first quarter ending in June 2009. Sales and operating revenue decreased 19.2% compared to the same quarter of the previous fiscal year to $16.8 billion. The company attributed the decline to factors including the slowdown of the global economy since september 2008 and the appreciation of the Yen.
The Sony video game division saw the most pronounced decrease with sales down 37.4% from a year ago to $2.6 billion.
The company’s unit of Bravia televisions, consumer still, video cameras, and Walkman music players saw its sales fall 27.3%, to $8.1 billion. Moreover, Sony was outstripped by LG Electronics who became the world’s second-largest maker of liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs in the first half of 2009, after Samsung.
However, Sony’s movie studio showed a brighter performance than the other units, posting a 6.5% increase in sales, mainly thanks to “Angels & Demons.”
Official launch of 3G services by turkish three mobile operators
Friday, July 31st, 2009
Long-awaited mobile 3G services have finally come to turkey yesterday, indeed, the three existing cellcos Turkcell, Avea and Vodafone officially rolled out their UMTS-based commercial services throughout the nation. The three companies that serve together up to 64.5 million customers as end of March 2009 have been awarded 3G licenses in late 2008 and began their next generation network trial in April 2009.
Turkcell, the country’s largest operator with more than 50% of market share in 2G services is determined to keep its position in the 3G services as well, according to CEO Sureyya Ciliv who said in a statement:”
We’ve already covered approximately 60% of the population with 3G technology, and we’re going to launch in all of Turkey’s 81 provinces. That, as a matter of fact, was the coverage we were supposed to reach in the first three years. We made it in 90 days.”
The other competitors are onb their part planning huge investments so as to expand their 3G network coverage and, thus position their selves as key players in the new mobile competition environment in Turkey.
Angola government have given its approval to the sale of 80% stake in Movicel on Thursday, thus authorizing one of the country’s biggest post-war privatisations. Even though the statement issued for that purpose did mention neither the transaction amount nor the location of buyers, it highlighted that Movicell will be acquired by several investors as follows:
