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After losing Nokia, crisis-hit Intel seeks network assets buyer
Nokia is substituting Arm-based chips for Intel silicon in its latest 5G products amid talk of a possible Ericsson takeover of Intel assets.
Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Somalia's Hormuud Telecom extends its mobile money platform; Elisa's Q3; Ken Campbell gets top job at Poland's Play; Sparkle's BlueMed has its day in the sun.
There's Nokia news a-plenty today, as the Finnish vendor announces changes to management team, sprinkles AI fairy-dust on its Altiplano Access Controller and lays off a fifth of its workforce in China – according, at least, to a Reuters report.
The management reshuffle sees Nokia's Corporate Affairs unit split into two separate sub-units, namely Geopolitics and Government Relations, and Communications. Finland's former Ambassador to the US, Mikko Hautala, joins the company as chief geopolitical and government relations officer, while Louise Fisk has been promoted to chief communications officer. Heading for the exit are Melissa Schoeb, erstwhile chief corporate affairs officer, and Jenni Lukander, president of the Nokia Technologies business group.
The AI telecom tsunami continues with Nokia announcing the integration of AI-driven operations (AIOps) into its Altiplano Access Controller, which is described as an automation platform for broadband networks. The new AIOps uses AI from applications in Nokia's Altiplano Application Marketplace to analyze network data and drive network automation.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Nokia has laid off around a fifth of its 10,400-strong workforce in China and plans to shed another 350 jobs across Europe as part of a drive to cut costs. A Nokia spokesperson confirmed the latter but not the former. This week Nokia revealed that quarterly headline sales fell 8% year-over-year, triggering a 5% fall in its share price on the Helsinki exchange.
Angola Cables has set up a European subsidiary, TelCables Europe, to support its growing international network and act as a "digital bridge" to connect to other Portuguese-speaking countries across the world. It will offer a range of products, including peering and cloud services, to customers across Europe and around the Mediterranean. As part of this initiative, the new company will also be establishing a new point of presence at the carrier-neutral Sines DC facility in Portugal.
Finnish operator Elisa saw third-quarter revenue fall by €9 million (US$9.7 million) year-over-year, to €536 million ($581 million), mainly, says Elisa, due to lower equipment sales and the impact of acquisitions and disposals. Mobile service revenue, however, grew by 4.8%, to €254 million ($275 million), while EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) also rose, by €7 million ($7.6 million), to €206 million ($223 million). EBITDA guidance for 2024 has been upgraded to "slightly higher" (previously it was "same level or slightly higher").
Somalia's Hormuud Telecom has formed two new banking partnerships to advance its mobile-money offer, one with MyBank and the other with Agro Bank. The agreements should enable full integration between Hormuud's EVC Plus mobile money platform and their respective banking services. More than 70% of Somalis use mobile money but only 15% of them hold a traditional bank account, according to Hormuud.
Ken Campbell, a serial telecom CEO with spells as top dog at Wind Mobile, Ooreedoo and Bite Group on his resume, has been appointed CEO of Polish operator Play, succeeding Jean-Marc Harion, who is heading to Sweden to become CEO of Tele2.
Sparkle, the international services arm of Telecom Italia, has won "Project of the Year" at the Global Connectivity Awards for its BlueMed subsea cable system. The judging panel described BlueMed, which boasts four fiber pairs and an initial design capacity of more than 25 terabits per second (Tbit/s) per pair, as "the most ingenious, visionary and demonstrably impactful digital infrastructure project of the year."
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