Author: Gugu Lourie

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…

Eskom announced today that evening loadshedding will be maintained at Stage 4 daily at 16:00 – 05:00 while Stage 3 loadshedding will be implemented daily at 05:00 – 16:00 until further notice. A further update will be published as soon as any significant changes occur, said Eskom. “Over the past 24 hours two generating units at Tutuka Power Station were taken offline for repairs while two units at the Arnot Power were returned to service,” the power utility added. “Planned maintenance to 6 018MW while breakdowns currently amount to 15 797MW of generating capacity. “Eskom requests members of the public…

Mercedes-Benz is funding a global fellowship that will provide training and scholarships to thousands of young people from around the world to implement their projects in the areas of environmental sustainability and decarbonization. To provide the seed money for the fellowship, Mercedes-Benz auctioned the world’s most valuable car, a 1955 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé, for a record price of €135 million or R2.5 billion. Mercedes-Benz will donate proceeds from the auction of a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé to fund beVisioneers: The Mercedes-Benz Fellowship The global fellowship programme will aim to scale up to support up to 1,000 young people per…

Bitwarden, open source password manager trusted by millions, today announced the acquisition of Passwordless.dev, a European-based open source startup that enables developers to create passkeys and other forms of WebAuthn passwordless experiences quickly. A core part of the FIDO2 specification, WebAuthn is a modern open authentication standard supported by browsers and technology giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple. “Most companies want to invest in passwordless solutions such as Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, and other forms of web authentication to create better user experiences and stronger security” Tweet this This acquisition comes on the heels of a $100M…

The DA has been reliably informed that the South African Post Office (SAPO) aims to cut staff salaries by 40% as of next month – while their looting of staff medical aid and pension contributions is ongoing. Medical Aid benefits have once again been withdrawn from both staff and pensioners because of non-payment – despite the fact that the staff lose that amount from their salaries and pensions each month. This is despite management assurances to the Communications Portfolio Committee that they would turn things around. “We have also learnt that the current CEO today earns nearly R4 million per…

JSE and Nasdaq-listed fintech group Lesaka Technologies, formerly known as Net1, today announced the resignation of its chief accounting officer, Alex Smith. The resignation of Smith is effective 1 March 2023. Lesaka said Smith is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities. The company added that Smith will assist in consolidating the roles and responsibilities of Chief Accounting Officer (CAO) into the ambit of Lesaka’s highly experienced Finance team. “The past 18 months have been a time of significant transformation for Lesaka,” said Chris Meyer: Group CEO. “While it has been challenging, our focus on execution has resulted in substantial strides…

South African payments platform Payfast is looking to continue its acquisition spree. In 2021, DPO Group, of which Payfast is a part, was acquired by Network International, a globally renowned digital commerce provider in the Middle East and Africa. The company is now known as DPO by Network. “We are currently exploring a number of partnerships,” said Brendon Williamson, managing director at Payfast, without giving further details. “Even though we have gone through an acquisition phase as DPO Group and now DPO by Network, we will continue that acquisition phase as Payfast supported by Networks. “So there are potential acquisitions…

Bidorbuy, one of South Africa’s largest online shopping and auction marketplaces, will soon be officially known as Bob Shop. In August 2022, Bidorbuy concluded a merger with shipping and fulfilment specialists uAfrica, the new combined company is called Bob Group. “Bob” speaks to our heritage as bidorbuy; Group refers to the fact that the new company offers so much more in terms of service, functionality and user experience for both merchants and consumers.,” the company said in its blog. The aim of the collaboration is to compete with Takealot and Amazon. Bob Group is a one-stop shop for everything ecommerce…

South Africa’s Telkom and data-only network operator Rain have terminated merger talks. Telkom informed investors on Wednesday that after initial discussions, but prior to any due diligence, the parties have decided that a suitable transaction is not possible at this time. “Telkom continues to execute its strategy to unlock value for shareholders and will provide an update on progress in this regard in due course,” said the company. Also read: GUGU LOURIE: MTN’s battle for Telkom is actually no contest Telkom shares were trading 10% higher at R35.68 by 14h20 today, maybe signalling a relief from the market that the deal…

JSE and Nasdaq-listed fintech group Lesaka Technologies, formerly known as Net1, has decided to retain the services of Steven Heilbron as CEO until June 2025. In a statement, the dual-listed group, said Heilbron has been the CCEO of the Connect Group since 2013 and joined Lesaka following the acquisition of Connect in the same capacity. Heilbron has two decades of financial services experience, having spent 19 years working for Investec in South Africa and the UK, where he served as Global Head of Private Banking and Joint CEO of Investec Bank plc. He led a private consortium that acquired Cash…

Telkom has unveiled the January Big Deal to connect you to super-fast, uncapped fibre. The company wants you kick-start the year with an exclusive January Fibre Big Deal that is fast, reliable and affordable. “Stay productive and make the most of every day with a deal that will help ease the January financial blues.,” says Telkom. The January Fibre Big Deal offers 25/10Mbps Uncapped @ R389 x 3 months, thereafter R499 x 9 months. “Telkom is working hard to bring you the best deals in South Africa. Bargain-hunting and no skimping on quality,” said Telkom. “Our wide array of products…

The BMW Group is continuing to drive the digitalisation of access to its vehicles in co-development with Apple and Google. It is now possible to share a BMW Digital Key across platforms between iPhone and Android devices. Previously, keys could only be shared via Apple iMessage. There is now no longer any need for a specific app or a set method of transmission. Instead, keys can be easily passed on to friends or family from the wallet using the native “share” function known from many apps. This means that sharing a BMW Digital Key now takes the straightforward form of…

Shoprite, Africa’s biggest retailer, is attracting more customers for its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). The retailer, which also owns  Checkers, reported that K’nect attracted 33 944 customers in its first year of operation in 2021. Shoprite told TechFinancials that K’nect had added 139,556 users in 2022, taking the total of new voice and data customers to 173 500. K’nect was launched on 23 March 2021. The prepaid cellular network has partnered with digital enabler FREI One Digital. It piggybacks off the mobile network infrastructure of Cell C, whose roaming partnership with MTN provides award-winning coverage. K’nect forms part of the Shoprite…

FNB Connect, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), has attracted 878 000 customers since its launch in June 2015, making FNB the first bank in the country to establish a mobile offering. Standard Bank officially launched its MVNO, SB Mobile, in November 2018. JSE-listed FirstRand, FNB’s parent, disclosed in its latest integrated report that retail’s commissionable turnover amounted to R17.9 billion (including prepaid service providers), with active sim cards in the MVNO reaching 878,000 in 2022 versus 833, 000 in 2021. Therefore, FNB Connect attracted 45 000 new customers in 2022. That means FNB is attracting a mere 3,750 customers…

Blockchain payments company Centbee announced today that it has closed its pre-Series A round with entrepreneur Calvin Ayre, founder of Ayre Ventures. Ayre Ventures first invested in Centbee in 2019. The company was founded by co-CEOs Angus Brown and Lorien Gamaroff’s in South Africa and now is a global blockhain payments wallet business. It is headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with offices in South Africa. Gamaroff is a leading expert in blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies. He has consulted and advised regulators and corporates internationally and is highly regarded globally as an educator and presenter. Brown has 20 years of experience…

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has promulgated seven final Radio Frequency Spectrum Assignment Plans for International Mobile Communications (IMT) high-demand spectrum, following an extensive notice and comment process. The seven bands are: 703 to 733 MHz and 758 to 788 MHz (IMT700); 733 MHz to 758 MHz (IMT750); 791 to 821 MHz and 832 to 862 MHz (IMT800); 880 MHz to 915 MHz and 925 MHz to 960 MHz (IMT900); 2300 MHz to 2400 MHz (IMT2300); 3300 MHz to 3400 MHz (IMT3300); and 3400 MHz to 3600 MHz (IMT3500). 450 MHz to 470 MHz (IMT450); 825 MHz…

Business communication and managed services provider ICTGlobe sees declining local voice margins and the weak SA currency as compelling reasons to seek a global market for ICTLabs. “A US headquarters for the research and development (R&D) subsidiary of ICTGlobe means stronger group earnings off the back of dollar denominated inroads in developed world markets,” says Riaan van Stryp, head of ICTLabs and the former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of member company, ICTGlobe Management (Pty) Ltd. ICTLabs is located in Boston in the US with additional presence in the ICTGlobe group head office in Centurion where it has already rolled out…