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Trump takes aim at Chinese telcos

The US president bars US companies from using telecoms equipment made by firms said to be posing a national security risk.

Paul Booth
By Paul Booth
Johannesburg, 20 May 2019

US president Donald Trump's announcement aimed at Chinese telecommunications companies dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, the listing of MTN's Nigerian subsidiary in Nigeria was one of the main stories.

Key local news

* Good year-end figures from MiX Telematics, with revenue up 15.4% and profit up 11.6%.
* Mixed year-end figures from Datatec, with revenue up 10.4% but profit down 64.2%; and Vodacom, with revenue up 0.3% but profit down 0.2%.
* A positive trading update from ISA.
* Vodacom acquired a 51% stake in South African Internet of things specialist IoT.nxt.
* Blue Label Telecoms made a 50% investment in Hyve Mobile, a next-generation mobile content and value-added services platform.
* Huge Group has agreed to acquire an interest in Pansmart, giving it control over an authorised distributor of Panasonic's voice, video and CCTV products.
* StorTech has changed its name to Nexio.

Key African news

* Mixed year-end figures from Vodacom Tanzania, with revenue up 5.5% but profit down almost 10%.
* Microsoft will invest $100 million to open an Africa technology development centre, with sites in Kenya and Nigeria, over the next five years.
* MTN Nigeria has commenced its listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
* The appointment of Brandon Bekker as Mimecast's SVP for the EMEA region.

Key international news

* Ahead acquired Link Solutions Group, a company with data centre expertise and experience delivering storage, compute and networking solutions.
* Apptio bought Cloudability, a FinOps pioneer and long-time Apptio partner.
* Brookfield Asset Management purchased Vodafone's New Zealand business for EUR2.1 billion.
* Descartes Systems Group acquired Core Transport Technologies NZ, an electronic transportation network that provides global air carriers and ground handlers with shipment scanning and tracking solutions.
* HPE bought Cray, a supercomputer manufacturer, for $1.3 billion.
* Magic Software bought PowWow, whose SmartUX is redefining digital transformation in the enterprise arena.
* Perficient purchased the assets of Sundog Interactive, a $14 million marketing and technology consulting firm that delivers Salesforce solutions for the world's leading manufacturers.
* Israeli business intelligence software provider Sisense acquired Periscope Data, a US provider of analytics for cloud data professionals.
* VMware bought Bitnami, an application deployment specialist.
* Amazon led a $575 million investment in Deliveroo, a UK-based online food delivery company.
* A divided US Supreme Court has given the go-ahead to an anti-trust lawsuit accusing Apple of forcing consumers to overpay for iPhone software applications. This decision could lead to billions of dollars in damages and put the company's lucrative way of selling apps at risk.

The former finance chief of Autonomy has been sentenced to five years in prison.

* US president Donald Trump has signed a long-awaited executive order declaring a national emergency and barring US companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms claimed to be posing a national security risk.
* The former finance chief of Autonomy has been sentenced to five years in prison for accounting fraud linked to the $11 billion sale of the software company to HP.
* Italy's competition watchdog has opened an investigation into alleged abuse of a dominant market position by Google in the smart device sector.
* Vodafone will merge its tower infrastructure in Italy into INWIT, the mast group 60% owned by Telecom Italia.
* Excellent quarterly results from Alibaba, Huya and StoneCo.
* Very good quarterly figures from CyberArk Software, NetEase and Wix.com (back in the black).
* Good quarterly numbers from Bouygues Telecom, Excelliance MOS, GMT (Taiwan), Nice, Tencent and Tencent Music.
* Good year-end numbers from Sophos (back in the black).
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Amdocs, Cisco, Everlight Electronics, HannStar Display, Magic Software, Simplo Technology, Sinopower Semiconductor, Tripod Technology and WidePoint (back in the black).
* Satisfactory half-year numbers from Sage UK.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Applied Materials, Elite Advanced Laser, Foxconn, Nvidia, TDC Group and Tower Semiconductor.
* Mediocre half-year figures from Zytronic.
* Mixed quarterly figures from Agilent, IIJ and Take Two Interactive Software, with revenue up but net income down; and from Entravision Communications (but back in the black) and Gilat Satellite Networks, with revenue down but net income up.
* Mixed year-end figures from Ubisoft, with revenue up but net income down.
* Quarterly losses from 8x8, Agilisys, Allot Communications, AudioEye, Baidu, BEST, Bilibili, Boxlight, Document Security Systems, GDS Holdings, i3 Verticals, Intermap Technologies, iQIYI, Japan Display, Jumia Technologies, Mimecast, Nanya PCB, ParkerVision, Payment Data Systems, Pinterest, Renren, SITO Mobile, Vislink Technologies, Vodafone Idea (India), voxeljet AG, Voxx International and WeWork.
* A full-year loss from 1Spatial, Cellcast and Vodafone.
* The appointments of Stephen G Daly as CEO of MACOM Technology Solutions; Alessandro Pansa as chairman of Sparkle, Telecom Italia's subsea subsidiary; and Rick Tsai as chairman of Richtech Technology.
* The resignation of John Croteau, CEO of MACOM Technology Solutions.
* A planned IPO from DataStax, a data management business.
* A planned IPO from CrowdStrike (most of its Falcon platform sales flow through channel partners).

Research results and predictions

Worldwide:
* The global number of cellular IOT subscribers increased by 70% during 2018 to reach 1.2 billion, according to Berg Insight.
* Worldwide semiconductor revenue will decline to $440 billion in 2019, down 7.2% from $474 billion in 2018, according to IDC. It forecasts that semiconductor revenue will recover in 2020 and log a CAGR of 2% from 2018-2023, reaching $524 billion in 2023.
* Global cloud infrastructure sales surpassed $21 billion in Q1 2019, according to Synergy Research.

Stock market changes

* JSE All share index: Down 1.1%
* FTSE100: Up 2%
* DAX: Up 1.5%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 0.7%
* S&P 500: Down 0.8%
* Nasdaq: Down 1.3%
* Nikkei225: Down 0.4%
* Hang Seng: Down 2.1%
* Shanghai: Down 1.9%

Look out for

International:
* Further acquisitions by Accenture.

Final word

Fortune magazine has released its 2019 Fortune 500, America's largest companies by revenue. From a technology perspective, and included in the top 100, are:

* 3: Apple (was 3)
* 5: Amazon (was 8)
* 9: AT&T (was 9)
* 15: Alphabet (was 22)
* 19: Verizon Communications (was 16)
* 26: Microsoft (was 30)
* 32: Comcast (was 33)
* 34: Dell (was 35)
* 38: IBM (was 34)
* 43: Intel (was 46)
* 55: HP (was 58)
* 57: Facebook (was 76)
* 64: Cisco (was 62)
* 70: Charter Communications (was 74)
* 81: Oracle (was 82)
* 88: Tech Data (was 83)
* 92: General Dynamics (was 99)

No additional technology company has made the top 100 and none have dropped out.

Further analysis of the Fortune 500 will follow over the next week or so.

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