Author: Gugu Lourie

Jumia – the largest e-commerce operator in Africa – was floated on the New York Stock Exchange(NYSE) on April 2019 and MTN is a significant shareholder. MTN – Africa’s largest mobile phone operator, owns 18.9% stake in Jumia. The stake is worth more than Clientele’s entire market value on the JSE, which is R5.1 billion. “Following the Jumia IPO and making reference to the NYSE share price of the business at the end of the period (30 June 2019), we now value our 18,9% stake at R5,5 billion at an American Depositary Share (ADS) price of $26,42,” MTN informed investors…

MTN  is re-focusing its business on building an integrated digital operator and the results are encouraging. The shift is part of a strategy to focus on the FinTech, digital, enterprise, and wholesale business areas. This is to position Africa’s largest mobile phone operator for the future where voice business will no longer be its bread and butter. MTN makes about 59% of its revenue from voice. In the six months to end June, MTN’s voice revenue rose 4.5% to R40 billion. However, this picture is slowly changing as MTN continues its journey to transform itself into a digital operator. In…

Blue Label Telecoms announced on Wednesday that it has promoted Douglas Craigie Stevenson to CEO of troubled Cell C. The JSE-listed firm, Cell C’s largest shareholder, said the appointment of Craigie Stevenson is with immediate effect. Craigie Stevenson was appointed as interim CEO in March. “In the past five months Douglas and his team have led the company to improved financial stability, sound business ethics and good governance, better operational performance and has established a path to sustainability,” Kuben Pillay, Chairman of the Cell C Board says. “His permanent appointment was unanimously approved by the board and we are fully…

Black Beard, South Africa’s tech solutions startup, rebrands to Basalt and the company is planning global expansion. The company’s key services include strategic innovative solutions development; web, system and app development; user acceptance testing; migration and porting; technical support; technical architecture; sustained engineering and personalised service. With its bold and sometimes unconventional style, Basalt has built transformative solutions for some of Africa’s major healthcare and financial institutions. Despite being a young company (founded in 2017), Basalt already has an impressive client portfolio including Standard Bank, Discovery, Westbrooke Alternative Asset Management, Investec Property, OUTsurance, Capricorn Fund Managers, NewzroomAfrik, Neopak and Buyisa…

Vodacom has launched a Super Value Data Offer, providing its customers 80GB. The promotion is available on SIM-only data bundles on a 24-month contract. The Super Value Data Offer is giving customers 80GB, consisting of: 30GB Data Night Owl (12 am – 5 am) 50GB Anytime Data The deal is available on a Huawei R218H Router for an additional R30 per month and on a Huawei B315 or a ZTE MF283 Home Router for R50 per month. Last week, MTN South Africa announced the launch of the 80GB Mega Deal at R299 per month. The mobile phone operator said the Mega Deal…

TymeBank announced on Wednesday it has promoted Tauriq Keraan to CEO after Sandile Shabalala resigned in June. The African Rainbow Capital-owned TymeBank said Keraan has been deputy CEO since 2018. In this role, he drove cross-functional execution and had line accountability for strategy, partnerships, data science, innovation, stakeholder engagement and operations. He also played a critical role in the market launch of TymeBank in 2019. He has played an instrumental role in the bank’s development, having been a founding member that led to Tyme’s inception in 2012 and has played a critical role in the market launch of TymeBank in…

The Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Science and Technology, Buti Manamela, will tomorrow officially launch the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) in Potchefstroom. SADiLaR is a national centre supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) as part of the new South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap (SARIR). SADiLaR has an enabling function, with a focus on all official languages of South Africa, supporting research and development in the domains of language technologies and language-related studies in the humanities and social sciences. The centre supports the creation, management and distribution of digital language resources, as well as…

The US Trade and Development Agency has provided funding to South Africa’s Wireless Access Providers Association (WAPA). The funding will be used for a pilot project that will help improve internet access for rural and semi-rural areas in South Africa through the use of American TV white space (TVWS) technologies. The pilot sites will be in Kwa-Zulu Natal, Gauteng, and in Mpumalanga. The consortium carrying out the pilot will be led by Adaptrum and includes Microsoft and International Data Corporation (IDC). The pilot will help WAPA promote TVWS networks to its wireless internet service provider member companies. “We are extremely…

Troubled JSE-Listed technology group EOH has re-launched the ICT business, which has been renamed iOCO, and the company seeks to improve its balance sheet efficiency. The group said in an update to shareholders on Thursday that re-launched the ICT business represents a key milestone in the internal reorganisation process. The process is aimed at simplifying the ICT business, integrating client offerings under one brand, driving governance imperatives and aligning the service delivery model and offerings for the cloud economy and fourth industrial revolution. The company added that work on the NEXTEC strategy continues, including how iOCO, NEXTEC, and the IP…

Telkom August Big Deal has been revealed. The company is offering a SmartBroadband Wireless deal for R249 a month on a 24-month contract and comes with an LTE WiFi router. The deal also includes: 20GB Telkom anytime data per month 20GB night surfer data per month (Night Surfer Data shall be valid between 12 am – 7 am) Customers on SmartBroadband Wireless 20GB offer are eligible to add a LIT TV box at an additional amount of R50pm x 24 months. Included in this August deal the ability to receive 3 months of Netflix on Telkom. Telkom said it reserve…