International Finance Corporation(IFC), subsidiary of the World Bank, has acquired 18% of the Fawry Electronic Bill Service' shares specialized in providing bill payment services for banks, retailers, Egyptian post offices, and airline companies. Eng. Ashraf Sabry, CEO of Fawry Company, said on Monday IFC will acquire such stake through subscribing to the entire capital increase, amounting to about$ 6 million (=EGP 40 million), pointing out that IFC has bought each share twice its nominal value; EGP 20 per share. After IFC has pumped new investments increases the capital of Fawry company e-payments from EGP 87 million to about EGP 127 million, equivalent to $19.5 million. More»

Research in Motion Ltd must chart a tough course in its two key emerging markets of India and Indonesia: quickly launch cheaper handsets to woo lower-end subscribers while restoring its tattered brand among the countries' status-conscious. The company, which is rebranding itself BlackBerry after its best-known smartphone, has won millions of followers in these two Asian countries, mostly by selling cheaper handsets and offering service packages as low as $2 a month. So it's unlikely that the Z10 model introduced last week, which operators in India expect to sell for around $750, will appeal to the users it must reach if it is to build market share. "It's clear that not only are India and Indonesia among the largest markets but in terms of future smartphone growth, they're amongst the ones with the most potential," said Melissa Chau, senior research manager at technology research group IDC in Singapore. "But the two devices that have been launched are not well aligned to the needs of these two markets." More»

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp expects revenue to be flat to 17 percent lower in the first quarter compared with the previous three months, worse than forecast, while margins are also seen holding steady or shrinking. The former contract manufacturer's fortunes have been declining sharply since the second half of 2011, as the growing dominance of Apple Inc's iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Galaxy range quickly deflated the success of its own brand's rapid rise. HTC said on Monday that it expects first-quarter revenue of T$50 billion to T$60 billion ($1.69-2.03 billion). That compares with T$60 billion in the fourth quarter and T$65.75 billion a year ago. Analysts have forecast HTC would earn revenue of T$62.77 billion for the quarter, according to the average projection of 18 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. More»

Cannot play media. You do not have the correct version of the flash player. Download the correct version.The BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones is one of those affected A quarter of a million Twitter users have had their accounts hacked in the latest of a string of high-profile internet security breaches. Twitter's information security director Bob Lord said about 250,000 users' passwords had been stolen, as well as usernames, emails and other data. Affected users have had passwords invalidated and have been sent emails informing them. Mr Lord said the attack "was not the work of amateurs". More»

Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt , uses a new book to call China an Internet menace that backs cyber-crime for economic and political gain, reports say. The New Digital Age - due for release in April - reportedly brands China "the world's most active and enthusiastic filterer of information". China is "the most sophisticated and prolific" hacker of foreign companies, according to a review obtained by the wall street journal (WSJ). Revolution coming? Beijing has been accused by several governments, foreign companies and organizations of carrying out extensive cyber espionage for many years, seeking to gather information and to control China's image. More»

Apple Inc.(APPL) passed Samsung (005930) Electronics Co. to become the top mobile-phone maker in the U.S. for the first time, scoring a victory in the companies’ battle for global dominance of the mobile-device market. Apple sold 17.7 million mobile phones in the U.S. during the fourth quarter, a 38 percent jump from a year earlier, research firm Strategy Analytics said today in a statement. That gave it 34 percent of the market, topping Samsung, which sold 16.8 million handsets for a 32 percent market share. Total shipments grew 4 percent in the quarter to 52 million phones. The U.S. market is a stronghold for Apple as it faces intensifying competition from Samsung and other smartphone makers using Google Inc.(GOOG)’s Android operating system. Samsung, which also makes cheaper handsets with less sophisticated functions, is the global leader in mobile phones with more than 100 million units sold last quarter. “Apple’s success has been driven by its popular ecosystem of i Phones and App Store, generous carrier subsidies, and extensive marketing around the new iPhone 5 model,” said Neil Mawstone an analyst at Strategy Analytics in London. LG Electronic Inc.(066570)  remained the third-largest vendor in the U.S., shipping 4.7 million mobile phones for a 9 percent market share, Boston-based Strategy Analytics said. More»

Lenovo Group today reported results for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2012. In its best quarter ever, Lenovo continued to outgrow the market in all geographies with record sales, pre-tax income and earnings.Lenovo continued its push towards becoming the world’s leading PC maker and emerging global leader in PCPlus devices, with another quarterly sales record of $9.4 billion, an12percent year-over-year increase. For 13 consecutive quarters, Lenovo has been the fastest growing major PC company. Lenovo was also recognized by IDC as the world’s third largest maker of “smart connected devices”, such as tablets, PCs and smartphones.  At the same time, Lenovo had another quarter of record pre-tax income at US$246 million, demonstrating that such rapid growth is being achieved while profits increase. Lenovo’s third quarter earnings were also a record at US$205 million, an increase of 34 percent over the last year, with gross margin at 11.8 percent. Gross profit for the third fiscal quarter increased 15 percent year-over-year, to US$1.1 billion, while operating profit for the third quarter was US$243 million, a 26 percent increase year-over-year. Basic earnings per share for the third fiscal quarter was 1.99 US cents, or 15.42 HK cents. Net cash reserves as of December 31, 2012, totaled US$4.2 billion. More»

Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil has revealed that Beni Suef Governor Maher Bebars informed him during a phone call on Tuesday that Samsung Electronics Ltd.,  the world's largest information technology company measured by 2012 revenues, will start the experimental operations in its first factory in Egypt’s Kom Abu Radi by mid-April. Dr. Kandi noted that Samsung’s new factory will make investments worth EGP 9 billion providing  around 6 thousand job opportunities through the factory’s 7 stages. On his personal Facebook page, the prime minister further said Beni Suef’s Kom Abu Radi, Bayad Al-Arab and 31/1 for Heavy Industries have managed to allure new local, Arab and foreign investments totaled at 147 projects worth EGP 21.332 billion which will create 25 thousand job opportunities for the governorate citizens. More»

MEET Company for MENA Communications Engineering has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Assiut university on Tuesday in the presence of Prof. Mostafa Kamal,  Assiut University President, and Brigade Mohamed Abdel Hay, General Manager of Renewable Energy Projects Development in MEET Company MENA Communications Engineering which recently work for restructuring and launching "Onera Systems"specializes in providing solutions for new and renewable energy. The memorandum of Understanding aims to exchange scientific and practical experiences, and the promotion of new and renewable energy sector in Upper Egypt and also to open new horizons for using solar energy to contribute for the development work in Assiut governorate. Brigade Mohamed Abdelhay, has confirmed about the Onera Systems company’s interests for  scientific research and development skills of students in Egypt and picturing new features of Egypt energy map, especially in Upper Egypt, describing it of having many possibilities, talents and Competencies that can develop innovative solutions to the energy problems that have become one of the obstacles to Egypt’s development . More»

Lebanon will get much-needed higher internet capacity via a Cyprus submarine cable, the telecoms minister said Monday, adding that the fourth-generation mobile communications (4G) will be pilot tested in February. “To give you a few numbers, we have for this purpose, right now, 200 Gigabytes/s on IMEWE [cable] and very soon 700 [Gbps] on Alexandros,” Nicolas Sehnaoui told American University of Beirut students and professors at a lecture. Last year, the minister announced that Cyprus and Lebanon would work together on a new submarine cable dubbed Europa. The cable will allow Lebanon to share transmission capacity of the Alexandros cable, an international cable which has landings in Cyprus, Egypt and France. The minister did not mention a specific date for the completion of the project and was not available for a comment. Lebanon improved the DSL internet speeds two years ago but despite the improvement the country still lags behind most other countries in the region in terms of broadband and fiber optics connections. More»