MOBILE PHONES NEWS ON FASTMOVING

BlackBerry is abandoning a plan to sell itself and instead will replace its chief executive officer and raise about $1 billion from institutional investors, including its largest shareholder, the smartphone maker said on Monday.  read more

Samsung Electronics has offered to stop taking rivals such as Apple to court in Europe over patent disputes in order to end an antitrust investigation, European Union regulators said on Thursday. read more

On Friday, struggling mobile handset maker BlackBerry reported a loss of $965 million, or $1.84 per share diluted, for the three months ended August 2013, compared with a prior loss of $235 million. read more

The business community has welcomed the release of the census results earlier this month saying they will help them plan their business operations.  read more

Helsinki - Beleaguered Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia will sell its mobile phone unit to the US group Microsoft for 5.44-billion euros ($7.17-billion), it has said. read more

BlackBerry Ltd is expected to draw preliminary interest from technology companies, buyout firms and Canadian pension funds, but its fate may ultimately rest in the hands of its largest shareholder, Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd.  read more

Mobile handset maker Nokia has announced the appointment of Shaun Durandt as general manager for Nokia South Africa.  read more

As South Africans get more connected online, shopping malls are finding their voice on social media, according to a new report. read more

Nokia on Thursday introduced a new smartphone, the Lumia 1020, with a powerful 41-megapixel camera as it tries to catch up with rivals Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc. read more

Standard & Poor’s downgraded Nokia further into junk territory on Friday, warning that the Finnish telecom firm’s plan to take over Siemens AG’s stake in their joint network equipment venture would strain its finances.  read more

Nokia has announced local availability of the Nokia Asha 210 across East Africa, bringing consumers more social experiences at an affordable price. The Nokia Asha 210, available in both single and easy swap dual-Sim variants, features a distinct design, smart imaging and Wifi to help people enjoy more of the internet for less. read more

Sainsbury, Britain’s third-biggest supermarkets operator, said on Monday it is to enter the mobile phone service market later this year as it seeks to add more business streams to complement its core grocery offer. read more

Handset sales in South Africa are projected to reach US$2.3 billion (R23 billion) in 2013, up 13% from US$2.1 billion (R21 billion) in 2012, with smartphones the main revenue growth driver, according to new research.  read more

Shares in Samsung Electronics Co Ltd slumped 3 percent to nine-month lows on Wednesday, as investors braced for weaker-than-expected earnings from the smartphone maker for the April-to-June period.  read more

Nokia’s push to expand sales of its Lumia smartphones in new markets such as China should help shrink an overall revenue decline and reduce its first-quarter loss, easing some of the pressure on CEO Stephen Elop.  read more

A German court ruled in favor of Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia on Tuesday, saying some devices made by Taiwan’s HTC infringed on its power-saving patent. read more

Clothing retailer The Foschini Group (TFG) said on Friday group sales for the nine months to December increased by 11.4% from a year earlier‚ with same store sales growth of 5.6%.  read more

Seoul - Samsung Electronics said its second quarter profit rose 48 percent over a year earlier as customers flocked to get Galaxy smartphones in the absence of competitors. read more

Telecommunications infra-structure provider Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens, will slash about 28% of its workforce in SA, as part of NSN’s global strategy of reducing costs and focusing on mobile broadband.  read more

Helsinki - Shares in Nokia Oyj fell over 3 percent on Monday after the company slashed the price of its flagship smartphone, with investors seeing it as a sign of desperation in its battle against Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.  read more

Salo, Finland - Nokia workers in Salo thought chief executive Stephen Elop signalled that their plant, Europe’s last major mobile phone factory, would survive when he visited in February, but last week he announced its closure anyway. read more

Paris - Loss-making Finnish cellphone maker Nokia plans to cut another 10 000 jobs globally and warned the second-quarter loss from its cellphone business would be larger than expected. read more

New appointments at Ackermans read more

The number of South Africans using the internet has risen significantly because of the use of cellphones, a new study has shown. read more

The third quarter will see the arrival of Apple’s iPhone 5, bug on new Nokia smartphone with Windows operating system has dashed hopes for a comeback read more

Johannesburg - South Africans who don't have access to a credit card can now shop online by using a single-use virtual prepaid card system called 1-2-Pay-Online.  read more

Nokia has signed a supplier deal to ensure that the tantalum it sources comes from conflict-free sources.  read more

South African customers may soon be buying cellphones and airtime from Kodak Express stores as the company chooses to opt out of the digital camera market and move into more lucrative revenue streams, it said on Friday. read more

Nokia no longer resembles a man standing on the edge of a burning oil platform with the sea as his only option for survival, according to CEO Stephen Elop. read more

The retail environment in SA will see big changes within the next year or so, experts say. The cellphone will be at the centre of the revolution.  read more

Japan’s biggest makers of phones, televisions and chips say they’ll lose about $17 billion this year, about three-quarters of what Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) will spend on research to lengthen the lead over its competitors. read more

The US could be set to see a shortage of critical rare earth minerals, according to a recent US Department of Energy (DoE) report, as supplies come under increasing strain. read more

New York - Apple shares soared on Wednesday following blockbuster quarterly earnings and the California gadget-maker briefly surged past ExxonMobil to become the largest US company in terms of market value.  read more

Sony Ericsson has announced losses of €207m (£173m) for the fourth quarter of 2011, well below analysts expectations, shortly before it finalises the acquisition by Sony of Ericsson's stake in the business read more

Sales of consumer electronics from smartphones to digital cameras will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year, driving tin consumption higher just as stockpiles of the metal slump to a 33-month low.  read more

Las Vegas - Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest technology firm by revenue and the world’s No2 handset maker, is confident of its handset shipments overtaking those of Nokia this year, its CEO said on Monday.  read more

Mobile phone applications that allow online shopping on the move could give battered British retailers something to cheer about in what is otherwise set to be one of the toughest Christmas trading periods for years. read more

Apple products have always cost more than the equivalent products elsewhere. It's one of the reasons that Apple has historically had very high brand loyalty and very low market share - a classic luxury good combination. read more

The company has not said where it will make the cuts, part of wider changes that analysts say seem to be aimed at gearing up the company for an initial public offering (IPO) read more

Visa has announced a significant step to bringing access to secure financial services and electronic payments to consumers in developing countries by introducing a new product serving the needs of unbanked and under-banked consumers. read more

Africa now the second-largest mobile market by connections after Asia, and the fastest-growing mobile market in the world according to new research read more