Africa By Region
MTN to Focus on African Markets and Ditch Middle East
MTN has announced that it is focusing its strategy on the African markets. “As part of our ongoing portfolio review, we believe the group is best served to focus in the future on our pan-African strategy,” says MTN Group CEO, Rob Shuter. “We will, therefore, be exiting the Middle East in an orderly manner over the medium term. As a first step, we are in advanced discussions to sell our 75% stake in MTN Syria.” The news comes after the telco announced that it added 11 million subscribers in the first six months of the year to reach a total base of 262 million. By the end of June 2020, MTN had 102 million active data users and 38 million active Mobile Money users. Despite lockdown restrictions impacting network rollout, MTN Group invested R10 billion in capital expenditure across...
Somalia Has the Lowest Mobile Data Costs in Africa, According to Research
One of Somalia’s largest telecommunications providers, Hormuud Telecoms has announced that it’s aiming to reach 100% of the Somali population with mobile money financial services. Telecommunications have grown substantially in Somalia over the past 10 years. With over 11 different providers now present in the market, the average costs of 1GB bundles have fallen to the lowest levels compared with any other nation in Africa or the Middle East. For a country long affected by civil war and unrest, the news offers a rare insight into the changing shape of the business community within Somalia. In Somali urban centres, mobile money penetration now stands at over 80%. Even in rural Somalia the mobile money penetration rate of 55%. A World Bank report published i...
Airtel Africa and Mukuru Partner to Facilitate Money Transfers within Africa
Airtel Africa and Mukuru have partnered to enable Mukuru customers to instantly send cross-border transfers directly to Airtel Money customer wallets in 12 African countries. This partnership will be particularly beneficial for customers making intra-Africa payments from Southern Africa where Mukuru has a leading presence. Customers also benefit from no longer having to physically go to an Agent to receive cross-border payments. Once Airtel Money customers receive the funds, they can be used to pay utility bills, goods and services, transferred to family or can be cashed out at any of Airtel Africa’s exclusive branches, kiosks and agents. “This partnership empowers those without a bank account to be included in the formal financial ecosystem and to move money conveniently, seamlessly and s...
Facebook’s Investing $57 Billion in Africa’s Economy
Facebook released findings from The Impact of Facebook’s Connectivity Initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa, a study conducted by Analysys Mason that highlights how Facebook investments in infrastructure and connectivity across the region will deliver over $57 Billion in Economic Benefits over the next five years (2020–2024). According to The Economist Intelligence Unit – Inclusive Internet Index 2020, over 800 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are unconnected to the Internet. Facebook’s infrastructure investments and connectivity initiatives include the following: Investing in Infrastructure that supports Internet connectivity Submarine cables – Will enable an increase in the supply of international bandwidth, reduction in costs for ISPs and resulted in a combination of more connectiv...
Airtel Africa Expands Network with WorldRemit
Airtel Africa and WorldRemit have partnered to expand operations to Rwanda – which means Airtel Money is now available in DRC, Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Niger. Airtel Money enables mobile money users to send local and international money transfers, make utility payments, pay merchants, save money in their mobile wallets, purchase airtime and access a range of mobile financial products. WorldRemit will enable customers from across the globe to receive money into Airtel Money wallets. Users can use the free mobile app; choose Mobile Money and Airtel as the operator, then follow the prompts. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_195.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_195.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “The connection to more Mobile Money accounts through Airtel Africa allows us to ...
Telecom26 Provides Connectivity To HIV and COVID-19 Testing Programmes Across Africa
Telecom26 has partnered with SystemOne to enable real-time test result communication, timely containment and treatment actions for infectious disease programmes in Ghana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The testing programmes are being implemented in conjunction with each country’s Ministry of Health and build upon SystemOne’s existing work across Africa tackling numerous diseases including TB, HIV, Ebola and now COVID-19. However, unreliable bandwidth and patchy connectivity are problems encountered by eHealth programmes across these countries. The traditional route is to buy local SIMs to provide device connectivity. Unfortunately, this limits users to one mobile network operator (MNO) – and adds juggling multiple SIMs across devices to find the strongest local network to a long list of headach...
SAP Appoints New Regional President of Africa
Image sourced from BCTech Report SAP has appointed Claudio Muruzabal as the new President for the EMEA south region that comprises of Southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa – he replaces Steve Tzikakis. Prior to joining SAP, Muruzabal was CEO of NEORIS, a global management and IT consulting business. As a visionary in the role of technology-driven innovation in business, he has enjoyed great success in SAP’s Latin America region which he joined in 2015 as President of SAP Latin America and the Caribbean. A strong advocate of education, entrepreneurship and the promotion of diversity, Muruzabal has been recognized as one of the HITEC Top 50 Most Influential and Notable Hispanic Professionals in the IT Industry in Latin America and Spain and in 2019. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_495.td-a-rec...
Showmax Pro Rolls Out to 40 New Countries Across Africa
Showmax has launched its new service – Showmax Pro – across 40 countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa, after initially rolling out in Nigeria and Kenya. Showmax Pro will bundle the existing Showmax entertainment service with music channels, news and live sport streaming from SuperSport. It features all Premier League, Serie A, La Liga and PSL games, as well as a wide range of other live sport events. Here’s a closer look at Showmax Pro’s offerings: Showmax Showmax Pro Showmax Showmax Mobile Showmax Pro Showmax Pro Mobile Series, movies, kids’ shows, documentaries ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ IAAF Athletics, pro boxing, major international marathons, & more – – ✓ ✓ Music channels Trace Urban, Trace Gospel – – ✓ ✓ News channels Africa News, Euronews, Newzroom Afrika – – ✓ ✓ Football: all Premier League...
Facebook Selects 12 Africans to Join its Community Accelerator Programme
Facebook has announced that 12 African community leaders have been selected to join the Community Accelerator, a six-month programme that aims to equip communities with the training, mentorship and funding they need to grow. As part of the global Facebook Community Leadership initiative launched in 2018, the Community Accelerator programme invests in leaders who are building communities around the world; including bringing people together, offering encouragement, and driving change. Awarding up to $3 million, selected community leaders will receive up to $30,000 in funding. In the first three months of the programme, these leaders will learn from experts and coaches, whilst developing customized curriculums focused on growing their own communities. The following three months will then be f...
Mastercard Foundation Partners with USIU-Africa to Expand Higher Education Access in Africa
Sourced from PYMNTS USIU-Africa and the Mastercard Foundation have partnered to enable 1,000 high-performing students to receive a quality education and leadership development over the next 10 years under the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Programme. The partnership provides scholarships for high potential students facing financial, gender, displacement or disability constraints. At least 70 per cent of the young people who benefit from the partnership will be young women, while 25 per cent will be displaced or refugee youth and at least 10 per cent will be young people living with disabilities. With this USD 63.2 million partnership, USIU-Africa joins the foundation’s expanding global network of partners committed to developing a generation of African leaders who will use their knowledge ...
Massive Rise in Cybersecurity Awareness Across Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa
Sourced from IDG Connect Nearly two thirds (66%) of remote workers in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa say they are more conscious of their organisation’s cybersecurity policies since the lockdown began – according to a new study from Trend Micro. However, it might be too early for businesses to breathe a sigh of relief, as the results also found that lockdown does not necessarily apply to employee cybersecurity habits, as risky behaviours persist. The study – which questioned over 13,000 remote workers across 27 countries, including 508 respondents from Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa on their attitudes towards corporate cybersecurity and IT policies – indicates that there has never been a better time for companies to take advantage of heightened employee cybersecurity awareness to crack d...
Teraco Welcomes Routed to the Africa Cloud Exchange
Sourced from InfoWorld. Vendor-neutral data centre, Teraco has welcomed cloud infrastructure provider, Routed to the African Cloud Exchange (ACX). Created to improve enterprise hybrid and multi-cloud performance through direct interconnection, Teraco’s ACX is said to provide secure, direct, flexible network connections to a wide range of local and global cloud service providers. As Africa’s first VMware Cloud Verified partner, Routed now offers a VMWare cloud platform for clients seeking access to multiple cloud environments. Routed has also recorded four years of 100% uptime and has achieved notable market share within the ISP sector. Andrew Cruise, MD of Routed, says that the company is also the only African provider of Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) within VMware’s vSphere 7 cli...
