Author: Gugu Lourie

SAP today announced key data innovations and partnerships that give customers access to mission-critical data, enabling faster time to insights and better business decision-making. SAP Datasphere solution, the next generation of its data management portfolio, give customers easy access to business-ready data across the data landscape. SAP also introduced strategic partnerships with industry-leading data and AI companies – Collibra NV, Confluent Inc., Databricks Inc. and DataRobot Inc. – to enrich SAP Datasphere and allow organizations to create a unified data architecture that securely combines SAP software data and non-SAP data. Until today, accessing and using data located in disparate systems…

SEACOM, Africa’s telecommunications and managed services provider, today announced the company’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Oliver Fortuin, has resigned. Fortuin will continue to serve in his position until June this year, during which time he will continue to support the SEACOM board and also participate in the process to announce his successor, which the company expects to conclude in the coming weeks. Fortuin’s decision to leave SEACOM comes as a result of a decision to be closer to his adult children who have relocated overseas. “It’s been a privilege to lead SEACOM on this next stage of its development. SEACOM…

Nedbank, one of South Africa’s largest banks, says it had more than 2.6 million digitally active customers at the end of December 2022, a 13% increase from the same period in 2021. “Our digital initiatives helped us to increase the number of digitally active retail clients in SA by 13% to 2.6 million,” Nedbank said. “This now represents 39% of total active retail clients and 68% of retail main-banked clients. “Retail digital transaction volumes in SA increased by 18% and transaction values up by 16% ( up by 40% since 2019).” Nedbank added that digitally active customers across Nedbank Africa…

JSE listed REIT, Octodec Investments, today announced that it has been approved for a secondary listing on A2X Markets. The group informed shareholders that its primary listing on the JSE  and issued share capital will be unaffected by the secondary listing on A2X. A2X is a licensed stock exchange authorised to provide a secondary listing venue for companies and is regulated by the South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority in terms of the Financial Markets Act 19 of 2012. Also read: Octodec Launches Newly Upgraded, Landmark Shoprite Building In Tshwane CBD JSE listed REIT, Octodec Investments, today unveiled the new look and…

Nedbank’s Avo Super app has gained more than 2 million users since its launch on the app stores in June 2020, a 1.9-fold increase year-on-year and a near five-fold increase in the number of active users. Nedbank informed investors today that Avo now has access to over 12 000 drivers in its delivery fleet across the country as product orders continue to grow exponentially. By the end of 2022, more than 20 000 businesses (a 15% increase) were registered to offer their products and services on this e-commerce platform. Avo is a super app that allows customers to buy essential…

Paratus South Africa announces that construction of its latest multi-million-rand teleport in Doornkloof, Pretoria, has begun and is due for completion in August 2023. The new teleport marks another significant milestone in the company’s investment in its own infrastructure that will deliver reliable and quality satellite connectivity to South African businesses and consumers, even when power outages occur. Paratus South Africa – part of the pan-African Paratus Group – will be building the group’s largest teleport and strengthening its diverse offering of cutting-edge satellite communications services. Managing Director of Paratus South Africa, Kallie Carlsen, explains: “This project is important to…

President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to announce a Minister of Electricity and a cabinet reshuffle “in a matter of days”. This is according to Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya, who was addressing media on Wednesday. “There are vacancies in Cabinet. We also now have a vacancy in the role of a Deputy President and so there is a sense of urgency that the President fills those vacancies as soon as possible. In a matter of days, that announcement will be made. “The President has to apply his mind. The appointment of Cabinet members and the management of Cabinet is not something…

Telkom announce plans to hike its prices, for mobile, fibre, DSL and voice products. The the Mobile, DSL & Voice portfolios price increases are effective 1 April 2023 and FTTH (Fibre to the Home) products effective 1 May 2023, respectively. With an inflation rate sitting at a record 13-year high, price increases are necessary and unavoidable to ensure long-term business sustainability. Like many other South African companies and enterprises, Telkom has been impacted by the pressures driven by prevailing macroeconomic dynamics. The imminent price increases across fixed voice, ADSL, FTTH and mobile offerings will ensure continued quality service to Telkom’s…

Money transfer company Zepz – formerly known as WorldRemit – is looking for more acquisitions and tech talent in Africa.   Zepz recently acquired IMGN Technologies, a South Africa-based software development company with 31 software engineers.   Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.   London-based money transfer company Zepz is set to play an important role in supporting the 2023 client acquisition and retention plans with its investment in technical talent in Africa.   Zepz, which operates through WorldRemit and Sendwave, says it is committed to growing its footprint, introducing new products, and optimising them on the African continent.…

Eskom on Friday morning announced the appointment of Calib Cassim as Interim Group Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect. The power utility is currently implementing Stage 6 load-shedding. Eskom said in a statement that Cassim will lead the Eskom management team until further notice. Cassim was appointed as Eskom’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in November 2018 after serving as Acting CFO from July 2017. He is a registered Chartered Accountant (SA) and holds a master’s degree in Business Leadership (MBL). With over 20 years of service in Eskom, his qualifications and extensive experience have provided Mr Cassim with a deep…

JSE listed REIT, Octodec Investments, today unveiled the new look and feel of its Shoprite building in the heart of the Tshwane CBD – a R60 million investment project announced in August 2022 to boost and uplift the bustling central node. Jeffrey Wapnick, MD of Octodec, says, “This project cements our commitment to the City of Tshwane which continuously presents growth opportunities for our already dominant inner-city retail and residential portfolio. It represents a renewal of our relationship and an upgrade of our service to a city that is increasingly attracting national retailers”. “We are excited to see this new…

Customers can look forward to a particularly immersive entertainment experience in the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class. Music, games and streaming content can be experienced in the car with almost all the senses. Thanks to digital innovations in the interior, the E-Class is now more intelligent, achieving a new dimension of personalisation and interaction. At the same time, the electronic architecture is more software-driven and less hardware-driven. This forms the basis for more individual updating of the interior systems in the future. The new E-Class is packed full of interesting and advanced features such as third-party apps optimised for the vehicle for…

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…

Spanish technology company TORSA has launched its pan-African business hub in South Africa with intentions to drastically reduce mining incidents, and most importantly fatalities. “The launch of TORSA’s office in Johannesburg is another step in our goal of taking our technology to all the main mining markets in the world, particularly Africa,” says Gabino de Diego, Director of Business Development at TORSA. “South Africa is a very interesting market, not only because of its mining potential, but also because of its strategic role within the African continent, as well as its current commitment to apply technologies and procedures focused on…

Microsoft today announced the third phase of its long-term partnership with with OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT. “Today, we are announcing the third phase of our long-term partnership with OpenAI through a multiyear, multibillion dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs to ensure these benefits are broadly shared with the world,” said Microsoft in a blog post. This agreement follows our previous investments in 2019 and 2021. It extends our ongoing collaboration across AI supercomputing and research and enables each of us to independently commercialize the resulting advanced AI technologies. “We formed our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance…

Music streaming service Spotify announced today that it will be restructuring the company affecting 600 employees. The music streaming services said the following will apply to all impacted employees: Severance pay: We will start with a baseline for all employees with the average employee receiving approximately 5 months of severance. This will be calculated based on local notice period requirements and employee tenure. PTO: All accrued and unused vacation will be paid out to any departing employee. Healthcare: We will continue to cover healthcare for employees during their severance period. Immigration support: For employees whose immigration status is connected with their employment, HRBPs are…