Author: Gugu Lourie

Telkom announced today that its WhatsApp-Based Digital Wallet, Telkom Pay has attracted thousands of customers. Telkom Pay was launched last December to offer customers the ability to pay others and get paid themselves using their mobile phone through the WhatsApp messaging app to anyone on their contacts list. Sipho Maseko, the Telkom CEO, said on Monday that Telkom Pay digital wallet is progressing well with over 10, 000 subscribers. “It’s a good foundation to grow this platform significantly.” Telkom Pay also serves as a cashless Point of Sale (POS) payment option for businesses. Users with WhatsApp can add Telkom Pay on…

Telkom reported a 53.4% rise in headline earnings per share (HEPS) to 561.5 cents a share for the year to end-March 2021, driven chiefly by the consistent performance of its mobile business. HEPS is South Africa’s main profit gauge. “A large portion of our growth is driven by the mobile business which has consistently outperformed expectations in the last five years,” Sipho Maseko, Telkom CEO, said on Monday. “We expect the mobile business to continue with its growth trajectory in absolute service revenue terms continuing to be the driver of growth, offsetting the decline in fixed voice which now contributes…

Openserve, Telkom’s network division, today reported that homes passed with fibre rose by 20.7% to 549 957 for the year to end-March 2021. The company attributed this to the need to consume multiple digital services, leading to increased data consumption, driven by a surge in data traffic across fixed fibre and carrier connectivity solutions. However, Telkom reported losing 318,000 fixed-line subscribers to 1.284 million in March 2021 versus 1.602 million in March 2020. As expected, Telkom also reported a significant decline in fixed broadband subscribers, dropping to 605,807 in March 2021 compared to 686,525 in March 2020. Also read: How Telkom is Slowly…

Balwin – a specialist, national residential property developer of large-scale, sectional title estates for South Africa’s growing low-to-middle income population – is synonymous with secure, affordable, high quality and environmentally-friendly developments. Apartments are designed to appeal to a wide range of home buyers, catering for a first-time, young professional, young family, older family, retirees, as well as buy-to-let investors. The company’s apartments include modern fitted kitchens, prepaid water and solar-assisted electricity, eco-friendly fittings and appliances, and fibre-enabled. The developer generates annuity income through subsidiary company Balwin Fibre which provides high-speed fibre connectivity to homeowners within Balwin’s estates. In 2017, the…

Africa is leading other continents when it comes to mobile money or FinTech, which has become big business for top mobile operators – MTN, Vodacom, and Airtel Africa. Database company, Statista, says for those people with no access to banking services, mobile money provides financial inclusion, a way to participate in the economy without a bank account. The use of mobile money in Africa, one of the most underbanked regions globally, has skyrocketed. In 2019, 200 million users made 24.46 billion mobile money transactions in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Middle East and Northern Africa accounted for 64.15% of all transactions made worldwide. Of the $690.1…

MTN South Africa is looking for Mobile Money (MoMo) agents after receiving R28 million from International Finance Corporation (IFC), a unit of Word Bank. MTN will use the funds for MoMo’s agents’ recruitment drive. MoMo allows users to purchase airtime, prepaid electricity, and pay for their municipal bills and DSTV subscriptions. The partnership will also see a strong job employment drive and will see IFC and MTN South Africa seek to recruit 10 000 Mobile Money Agents in 2021 to increase access to affordable financial services in underserved communities. MTN will identify, recruit, enrol, train, and supervise the new MoMo agents and…

The number of electric cars on the road was expected to reach almost 10 million in 2020, as sales grow despite the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study by International Energy Agency. However, South Africa lags in the sale of electric cars. Electric car sales in South Africa comprised only 92 units, or 0,02% of the total 380,206 vehicles sold in the domestic market in 2020, down from 154 units in 2019. This is according to a newly-published policy discussion paper by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic) on the South African roadmap to the production of electric…

Bang & Olufsen, the Danish audio company, is introducing a new rugged portable speaker with 27 hours of battery life. The Beosound Explore, a tough and robust speaker created for adventure, will retail for about R3 400 at Bang & Olufsen stores and online. Designed with portability in mind, Beosound Explore’s cylindrical shell provides a secure grip and fits easily into rucksack pockets so you can stay focused on the track ahead. Despite its durable outer shell, the speaker is lightweight at 631 grams, letting you stay agile whilst on the move. With up to 27 hours of playtime at…

Zhang Yiming, co-founder of ByteDance – the owners of TikTok, will step down as CEO and transition to a new role. In an internal letter, ByteDance said co-founder and HR head Liang Rubo will become the new CEO. Yiming and Rubo will work side by side over the next six months to ensure the smoothest possible transition. “At the same time, there are still many things that we need to improve, and I think someone else can better drive progress through areas like improved daily management,” wrote Yiming in an internal letter. “The truth is, I lack some of the…

VodaBucks, a loyalty programme for Vodacom, has attracted 24 million unique customers in South Africa, says Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub. Vodacom introduced the VodaBucks Rewards Programme last September as a single platform to benefit loyal customers. Every time a customer achieves personalised behavioural goals, such as buying specific bundles using the Just-4-You platform or downloading and engaging with the My Vodacom App, the programme rewards them with VodaBucks – a unified virtual currency. In addition, customers can earn VodaBucks for the many things they already do, such as paying their Vodacom bill (including add-on data and voice bundles) and buying…