Mobile and Telecoms
Telkom Kenya is Planning a Loan Product on T-Kash
Image sourced from News24 Telkom Kenya is reportedly planning on introducing a credit product called T-Kash Loan. According to Techweez, the product has not been activated yet but the company has indicated on the T-Kash app that it is “coming soon.” T-Kash is a mobile payment solution owned by Telkom, a telecommunication provider with a presence in more than 38 African countries. The new product will be taking on Safaricom’s M-PESA, one of the leading mobile money services in Africa, which currently owns 99 percent of the market share in the country. This product will also be the first of its kind for Telkom while Safaricom offers this product in three ways through the M-PESA mobile money service, which includes Fuliza, KCB M-Pesa, and M-Shwari. It is not clear yet whether the telco will b...
Cellulant Partners with Five Water Utility Companies in Zambia
Gilbert Lungu, Cellulant Zambia Country Manager. Image sourced from Africa Business Communities. Cellulant Zambia announced a digital payment partnership with five leading Zambian water utility companies; Nkana Water, Kafubu Water, Mulonga Water, Chambeshi Water, and Western Water. This partnership will allow customers in the country to pay their water bills with their preferred mobile money and selected bank accounts (Standard Chartered Bank, Zambia National Building Society, and Natsave). In remote areas, customers travel long distances to pay for their water bills. With the partnership, customers will be able to pay for their water bills through Tingg. Since first partnering with Mulonga and Nkana Water 3 years ago, all the water utilities in Northern Zambia have jumped on board and exp...
Cellulant Partners with Five Water Utility Companies in Zambia
Gilbert Lungu, Cellulant Zambia Country Manager. Image sourced from Africa Business Communities. Cellulant Zambia announced a digital payment partnership with five leading Zambian water utility companies; Nkana Water, Kafubu Water, Mulonga Water, Chambeshi Water, and Western Water. This partnership will allow customers in the country to pay their water bills with their preferred mobile money and selected bank accounts (Standard Chartered Bank, Zambia National Building Society, and Natsave). In remote areas, customers travel long distances to pay for their water bills. With the partnership, customers will be able to pay for their water bills through Tingg. Since first partnering with Mulonga and Nkana Water 3 years ago, all the water utilities in Northern Zambia have jumped on board and exp...
MTN Reveals New Plans for its 5G Coverage of South Africa
MTN South Africa has revealed that it is ramping up the rollout of 5G coverage to bring the seamless, fast and cutting-edge experience of the 5th generation network to more South Africans. With over 1,000 active 5G sites across the country currently, MTN aims to have at least 25% of the population covered by the end of 2022. “We want to have 5G connectivity across almost every part of SA. Our aim is to bring the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to more people in an efficient and cost-effective way. This means expanding our 5G coverage every day, with a strong focus on investment into main metros, peri-urban areas, and larger townships initially,” says Charles Molapisi, MTN SA’s CEO. With speeds 10 times faster than 4G and the potential to be 100 times faster, 5G is changi...
Telkom Kenya Launches New Data and Voice Sharing Product
Image sourced from News24 Telkom Kenya has launched a new product called the Chaga Bundle. This product will allow five users to share data and voice bundles at a price of $12.76. According to Techweez, a group of a minimum of three people and a maximum of 5 people can share 100 GB of data, 200 on-net minutes, 50 off-net minutes, and 200 SMSs for $12.76. One person will be able to purchase the bundle and set up a group of three to five people to share the bundle with. “The discerning customer is keen to pool resources wherever possible. As Kenyans, we share in the spirit of coming together to share costs on occasiosn where we cannot manage to shoulder a financial obligaton as individuals,” Telkom’s Director of Marketing, Eric Achola said. “Telkom, guided by our belief that Mobile Data is a...
Telkom Reports a Decline in its Revenue
Image sourced from News24 On Tuesday, Telkom SA published annual financial results for the year ended 31 March 2022 and it reported that its revenue dropped 1.1% to R42.8 billion ($2.7-billion). According to Tech Central, the telecommunications group is blaming tough competition and the weak economy for this poor performance. Telkom says despite this decline it has managed to deliver a stable EBITDA of R11.9 billion ($742.9-million) expanding the margin by 0.2ppts to 27.9%. “This was achieved through various initiatives that introduced efficiency to operations while improving the customer experience,” Telkom Group CEO, Serame Taukobong, said. Openserve increased fixed data revenue by 5.5% largely driven by the growth in carrier links. Over the period, an increase of 16.6% in fixed data con...
West Africa’s Tizeti Names New Board Chairman
Emmanuel Ikazoboh, newly appointed Board Chairman for Tizeti. Tizeti Network Limited, a West African solar-based internet service provider has today, announced the appointment of Emmanuel Ikazoboh as its Board Chairman. Emmanuel Ikazoboh is the immediate former Group Chairman of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), Chairman of ARM Pensions Managers Limited (Pensions Fund Administrators), and is the International Vice Chairman at International Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada. He is an independent/Non-Executive Director for Nampak Packaging Limited South Africa and Dangote Cement Plc. He was appointed Administrator of The Nigerian Stock Exchange and helped transform the Nigerian Stock Exchange as well as the Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS), and was responsible fo...
HelloPay Launches Business Solution Package to Support SMEs
Image sourced from Xpatloop. HelloPay has launched a new turn-key suite of business solutions that will enable growth, save costs, and give users peace of mind that financial access is available to them when they need it. The informal sector accounts for about 18 percent of South Africa’s GDP, with over three million workers engaged in the informal economy. In addition, an estimated 2.9 million migrants reside in South Africa, many of whom struggle to access financial services in order to start small businesses like spaza shops, salons, and kiosks. That’s an incredible portion of the population that remains underserved in the financial sector, unable to access or otherwise afford the services needed to grow their businesses. Serving the underserved HelloPay’s SoftPOS offering, which w...
7 Android Go Apps to Maximise Performance on your Smartphone
Sourced from Getty Images. Google’s Android Go is a lighter, lightning-speed operating system (OS) designed for smartphones with less than 2 GB of RAM. To go along with this OS, Google has created a range of Android Go apps that run faster and take less storage space than the regular Google apps. These apps are fully compatible with regular Android. They’re a great option if you feel your phone is getting old or bloated and is starting to run slow. A word of caution: while they’re lighter and quicker, they might not have all the features of the regular versions. Alcatel looks at some Android Go apps that will save space on your phone and offer you a faster, more responsive experience. Google Go Google Go is a lighter, faster way to search, with search results optimised to save up to 40% of...
Safaricom’s M-Pesa & Visa Introduce GlobalPay Virtual Card
Image sourced from HapaKenya. Safaricom has entered an agreement with Visa to form M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa Virtual card which will see the mobile phone-based money transfer service transact in 200 countries. This will allow customers to transact up to Sh150,000 ($1,283.70) per payment and Sh300,000 ($2,567.39) per day. “By partnering with Visa to provide the M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa virtual card, we are looking to bridge the gap for our customers who would like to use M-Pesa anywhere across the world,” Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said. According to Business Daily, the two firms are also targeting to launch the M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa Virtual Card Tanzania, Congo DR, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Ghana. This new deal will make it possible for Visa to fulfill its goal of penetrating the African market. V...
Clickatell Scoops Prestigious Nigerian ICT Award
Country Director at Clickatell Nigeria, Samson Isa. Clickatell, a CPaaS innovator, and one of the Chat Commerce leaders was acknowledged by Nigeria Communications Week as their Communications Solutions Provider of the Year, as part of their 13th Beacon of ICT (BoICT) Awards, held on Saturday (28 May 2022) in Nigeria. Nigeria Communications Week, a prominent local technology publication, held its annual awards, which recognizes top performers in Nigeria’s ICT sector, in Lagos on the weekend. Clickatell was awarded the winner in the category Communications Solutions Provider of the Year for its Chat Commerce solution following a voting process that included business leaders, readers, as well as independent quality experts. “This is a testament to your talents, innovations, contributions, and...
Elon Musk’s Starlink to Provide Internet Services in Nigeria
Image sourced from Independent.co.uk. Elon Musk, a business magnate, announced that Starlink, a satellite internet service he launched through SpaceX, will be providing internet services to two countries in Africa including Nigeria. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) also confirmed this announcement, according to TechCabal. This follows a visit to Nigeria by the Starlink’s team in May last year to discuss the possibility of obtaining a licence. SpaceX, Musk’s spacecraft engineering company, announced early in May that Starlink now operates in 32 countries. Starlink will bring competition to the Nigerian market, taking on large telecoms like MTN and Airtel in a bid to bring stable internet connection to the country. “The company received two licenses, which include the Internation...
