Author: Gugu Lourie

It may come as no surprise that smart homes are the future with worldwide household penetration predicted to reach 28.8% by 2027 up from 14.2% in 2022, according to Statista. But where in the world is already embracing smart home properties and smart devices the most? To answer this, Compare The Market has created an index by analysing worldwide property listings and relevant smart home search terms. Smart homes refer to any technology that can be controlled through a smartphone or computer – think heating, lighting, and security cameras. Below are the top 25 countries according to the research Taking the…

The world’s first convertible with a purely electric drive is a MINI. From idea to small series in less than eight months. The MINI Cooper SE Convertible sets another strong impulse on the way to becoming a fully electric brand. Following the positive feedback on the unique specimen presented in summer 2022, MINI is now going ahead with a small series of the all-electric MINI Cooper SE Convertible, which represents another big step in the direction of electric mobility. The world’s first locally emission-free premium convertible in the small car segment shortens the transition period to the introduction of the…

Scatec ASA has today signed an agreement with a subsidiary of Stanlib Infrastructure Fund II, managed by Stanlib Asset Management (Stanlib), to sell its 42% equity share in the 258 MW Upington solar power plant for a gross consideration of R 979 million. Scatec, a renewable energy company in emerging markets, is headquartered in Oslo, Norway and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange “Today’s transaction is in line with our strategy to optimise our portfolio as presented at our Capital Markets Update in September 2022 and will release capital for new investments in renewable energy,” Scatec CEO Terje Pilskog. “We…

Vodacom Financial Services  saw revenue reached R2.6 billion in the quarter to end-December 2022, up 30.6%. The Vodafone-owned company said in South Africa, growth was fuelled by its insurance business, which posted revenue growth of 13.5% and a pleasing recovery in Airtime Advance revenue growth. What is Airtime Advance?  When you’re out of airtime or data, you can get airtime or data in advance when you need it most and only pay the next time you recharge your account. It is a self-service option that allows Vodacom prepaid customers to receive airtime or data in advance and pay for it…

Vodacom announced today that its South Africa operation recorded a 9% rise in data customers to 25.5 million in the quarter to end-December 2022, representing 70.6% penetration of one-month active customer base. The Vodafone-owned telco added that the number of 4G devices on its local network increased 11.4% to 19.2 million. The company also saw a 14% rise in prepaid data revenue to R3 billion. “Smart devices on our network were up by 13.0% to 29.5 million, while the average usage per smart device increased 27.4% to 3.2GB per month,” said Vodacom. The service revenue of the South African operation…

Vodacom announced today that its Super App, VodaPay, has added 800 000 new users in the quarter ended 31 December 2022. The VodaPay super app is available for download from Apple and Android app stores. VodaPay delivers a digital shopping, lifestyle and financial platform for consumers and businesses. “In addition to delivering value to shareholders by ensuring the smooth integration of Vodafone Egypt into the Vodacom Group, we remain firmly focused on our purpose of connecting people for a better future and, in particular, assisting customers impacted by cost of living constraints,” said Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO. “A prime example of…

This month, HONOR will reveal the much-anticipated HONOR X9a smartphone in South Africa. The HONOR X9s is the latest member of HONOR’s reliable X Series, further expanding the brand’s product portfolio to bring HONOR’s powerful technology to more users than ever before and takes the X Series to a whole new level. In South Africa, HONOR X Series achieved huge success on the ground with the roll out of various devices from the line-up. It gained a lot of applaud in South Africa as it was carefully curated to bring users reliable products with an exquisitely slim and stylish designs,…

Convergence Partners, owned by ICT industry veteran Andile Ngcaba, has raised $296 million or R5.1 billion, surpassing its initial target by over 18%, to drive digital inclusion across Africa. The funds were raised through Convergence Partners Digital Infrastructure Fund (CPDIF). The recent close of CPDIF marks a significant milestone for the company, as it represents Convergence Partners’ largest fund to date, bringing total funds under management to more than  $600 million or R10.3 billion. The close was backed by a combination of existing and new investors comprising leading global and regional development finance institutions (DFIs), pension funds and financial institutions based…

Google has created a new artificial intelligence (AI) system called MusicLM that can produce music in any genre from a text description. “We introduce MusicLM, a model generating high-fidelity music from text descriptions such as “a calming violin melody backed by a distorted guitar riff”,” said Google in a research paper. MusicLM casts the process of conditional music generation as a hierarchical sequence-to-sequence modeling task, and it generates music at 24 kHz that remains consistent over several minutes. “Our experiments show that MusicLM outperforms previous systems both in audio quality and adherence to the text description,” said Google. “Moreover, we…

Checkers on Friday placed an advert in Australian publication, The Sydney Herald, as well as the UK’s London Evening Standard, highlighting what it called its “value offering”. Africa’s biggest retailers has no stores in either Sydney or London “We want to remind the many South Africans living in both the United Kingdom and Australia, that our country is a great place to live, and Checkers makes living here even better,” says Mike Middleton, Chief Marketing Officer for Checkers.   “Checkers is the country’s number one value supermarket* focused on saving customers money on their daily groceries – and that extends to premium food and…