Author: Gugu Lourie
South African taxi operators have earned R3.3 million rewards through the SA Taxi Rewards, a minibus taxi rewards programme, JSE-listed Transaction Capital revealed on Wednesday. The rewards programme was launched in April 2018 by SA Taxi, an independent minibus taxi financier, in collaboration with Taxi Choice, the commercial arm of the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO). The SA Taxi Rewards programme was previously known as Black Elite. The SA Taxi Rewards has 52 992 rewards cards. The programme aims to leverage the minibus taxi industry’s purchasing power to negotiate better pricing to benefit minibus taxi operators, associations and ultimately the…
Soweto-born entrepreneurs have teamed up to create a way for ordinary South Africans to buy online without entering their bank details. This innovation opens up possibilities for both businesses and customers to engage without the worry of scams. Airbuy was officially launched in 2019 with a mission to help ordinary South Africans pay and transact online more safely using their phone numbers instead of risking their banking details. This startup vision was to make paying online as simple as buying from a “Spaza Shop”. The startup was co-founded by Soweto-born Wits Alumni, Njabulo Makhathini and Tshepang Kobo. To commercialise their…
Naspers-backed car subscription company Planet42 is targeting expansion opportunities in Mexico and Brazil. Planet42 is a car subscription company that puts cars in the hands of people unfairly ignored by banks. There, every year more than 7 million second-hand cars are bought and sold, but Mexico also faces the social and economic challenge of having a large population of underbanked individuals. After developing a foothold in Mexico, Brazil is the next major market Planet42 is planning on moving into. “Mexico faces similar challenges to South Africa with an incredibly large population of underbanked professionals and substantial transport inequality,” said Grant…
Naspers-owned Takealot Group and Pick n Pay announced today that their two companies have signed a commercial services agreement which will enable customers across South Africa to buy Pick n Pay food, groceries, and liquor on a new platform on the Mr D app. This new service brings together the strengths of Pick n Pay and the Takealot Group. Pick n Pay will bring its tremendous expertise in running fresh food and grocery, its nationwide store network, and its leading Smart Shopper loyalty programme. The Takealot Group will bring its proven ability to satisfy online, its technical expertise, and its…
Online shopping is booming for Pick n Pay Clothing, which in October 2020, created its online shop to lure customers who were impacted by the spread of COVID-19. Today, Pick n Pay informed investors that online clothing sales increased 233% year-on-year, including through its strategic partnership with online retail platform Zando. The retailer also said that its clothing division made excellent progress, with sales growth of 21.0% year-on-year. “The strong performance was driven by solid market share gains across a number of women’s, men’s and childrenswear categories, for the fourth consecutive year. On a two-year compound annual growth basis, clothing…
Pick n Pay asap!, formerly known as Bottles, is delivering value as more shoppers continue to use the app. The retailer informed investors today that it has made progress against a number of its strategic priorities. The refurbishment of key Pick n Pay Select supermarkets, serving our most affluent customers, resulted in a gain in customers. Pick n Pay Clothing delivered market-leading sales growth and increased its market share across several key categories. The company said its on-demand online grocery offer was relaunched as Pick n Pay asap!, resulting in significant growth in the second half of the year. “Relaunch…
When the draft of a Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to the press, many of us who have been studying privacy for vulnerable individuals came to a troubling realization: The marginalized and vulnerable populations whose online risks have been the subject of our attention are likely to grow exponentially. These groups are poised to encompass all women of child-bearing age, regardless of how secure and how privileged they may have imagined themselves to be. In overturning Roe, the anticipated decision would not merely deprive women of reproductive control and physical agency as a matter…
THElatest data released today shows that the value of Vodacom’s mobile money platform, M-PESA, continues to scale at an impressive rate with transaction values exceeding R5.3 trillion in 2022 financial year. “Alongside M-Pesa, which is expected to further establish itself as Africa’s largest fintech provider through the implementation of an enhanced product roadmap, VodaPay will be instrumental in our quest in connecting the next 100 million African customers so that no one is left behind,” said Shameel Joosub, Vodacom CEO. “M-Pesa across our markets has grown to serve more than 47.1 million customers and 550 000 merchants through 510 000 agents…
Vodacom announced today that its Super App, VodaPay, is gaining traction as more customers sign up to use the platform. 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. “Through our sustained investments into financial, digital and lifestyle services, we remain focused on providing opportunities to enhance our relationship with the 129.6 million customers we serve across our footprint,” said Shameel Joosub, Vodacom’s CEO. “I am particularly excited about VodaPay’s high adoption rate since its launch in South Africa in October last year…
Shareholders of Vodacom Group are set to receive hefty rewards following the Vodafone-owned group’s financial performance in the 2022 financial year, which saw revenue climbed 4.5% to R102.7-billion. Vodacom will pay a final dividend of R7.9 billion withholding tax to its investors. The company paid an interim dividend in half-year and took the total dividend to R8.50 a share, up 3% to R15.6 billion total disbursement to shareholders. But the company said that since the financial year ended 31 March 2013, the board has maintained its dividend policy of paying at least 90% of adjusted headline earnings, excluding the contribution…
MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile phone company, has navigated the impacts of COVID-19 to deliver a solid Q1 2022 performance. To investors, MTN Group said in a statement that FinTech revenue rose by 21.2% year-on-year (YoY). Mobile Money (MoMo) active monthly users grew by 25.9% YoY. “The volume of transactions processed through our fintech platform was up 32.5% in Q1 2022 YoY to 2.9 billion transactions. “The value of transactions increased by 12.6% YoY to $59.9 billion (up 18.9% in constant currency).” MTN Group said new commission-earning rules were implemented in Ghana during Q3 2021 to improve margins, which impacted…
The Bethulie Regional Court in the Free State province has sentenced three men to 30 years’ imprisonment each for theft and damaging Vodacom’s network infrastructure. Patrick Chirambandare, 34, Washington Khoza, 32, and Cliff Hove, 28, were sentenced to 15 years each for tampering with a Vodacom tower near Springfontein and an additional 15 years for stealing 12 Narada batteries valued at R78 000 belonging to Vodacom. On 9 June 2021, police responded to a call at two cellphone towers close to the N1, where the was a signal of a break-in. “The police, together with private security, found the accused…
The new Lexus NX Hybrid Range has been confirmed for the South African market and orders are open despite the carmaker experiencing supply constraints like all motoring brands. Lexus is fully committed to its carbon-neutral strategy and focusing on lowering fuel emissions by taking yet another confident step on the path to providing realistic electrified motoring. The Lexus NX hybrid range joins its petrol grade siblings – the 2.5-litre normally-aspirated eight-speed automatic EX grade and the 2.4-litre turbocharged petrol grade which comes in F Sport guise. In the newly-minted hybrid range, the models comprise three derivatives, namely: NX 350h EX…
Mercedes and will.i.am have teamed up to create “The Flip”, a vehicle dubbed the “WILL.I.AMG” which is described as a one-off automotive vehicle designed by a multi-platinum American musician and tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist. In their sixth project together, will.i.am teamed up again with West Coast Customs to execute his fearless vision for “The Flip.” It also sets an example for the future: the mission of this joint project “The Flip – Innovation for Purpose” is to give more students from disadvantaged communities access to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) education in order to be equipped with the…
Ralph Mupita, the boss of Africa’s largest mobile phone firm MTN, was paid R84.2 million in the 2021 financial year. The total package of R84.2 million was made up of a R15.4 million salary and a R28.9 million in short-term incentives, plus more than R37.7 million in reflected long term incentive bonus. Mupita was paid R36 million in 2020. The company informed investors that the difference in Mupita’s remuneration received in 2021 compared to 2020 was attributed to improved performance outcomes between the two years and his promotion to group CEO effective from 1 September 2020. Tsholofelo Molefe, MTN’s Group Chief…
JSE-listed technology group SilverBridge is likely to delist from the JSE if UK-based private equity firm Rox Equity Partners’s unsolicited offer is accepted by shareholders. Rox has tabled a revised R2.00 a share offer to buy SiilverBridge and delist it from the JSE. The private equity firm had previously offered R1.525/share to buy the company. The implementation of the Offer is subject to fulfilment or waiver by no later than 17h00 on 31 August 2022. Rox is a private equity investment holding company headquartered in the United Kingdom taking material interests in established global companies at the forefront of disrupting…
The South African government’s plan to have every household getting 10GB of free data a month appears to be a ‘pipedream’ for now. Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Khumbudzo Ntshavheni promised that the government would provide 10GB of free data to every household in South Africa regardless of income level. She made the promise during a joint State of the Nation debate on Tuesday, 15 February 2022. The basic data allocation will be similar to the provision of essential municipal water and electricity services to needy households. In a written response to parliamentary questions from Zandile Majozi of the Inkatha Freedom…
South African government institutions must use the Post Office so that the state doesn’t have to bail out the operator of the postal services, according to a new draft Bill published for public comment on Wednesday. The South African Post Office SOC Ltd Amendment Bill calls on government institutions which include national and provincial departments, national and provincial government components, and municipalities are encouraged to utilise services offerings by the Post Office and its infrastructure in the delivery of their services. The draft Bill also calls for government institutions to set-aside certain services to be provided by the Post Office…
Cool Ideas is ranked first among South Africa’s Internet Services Providers (ISPs) with a median download speed of 46.05 Mbps, followed by Afrihost and WebAfrica, a report by speed test service Ookla revealed on Tuesday. Ookla, which owns and operates the popular speedtest.net Internet speed testing service, has published its latest Speedtest Global Index rankings for South Africa for the first quarter of 2022, revealing that Webafrica and Cool Ideas had the lowest latency at 4 ms. Consistency Score In measuring the consistency of each fixed broadband provider’s performance, we found that Cool Ideas had the highest Consistency Score in South Africa…
MTN is ranked first among South Africa’s mobile operators with a median download speed of 51.76 Mbps, followed by Vodacom and Telkom, a report by speed test service Ookla revealed on Tuesday. Ookla, which owns and operates the popular speedtest.net Internet speed testing service, has published its latest Speedtest Global Index rankings for South Africa for the first quarter of 2022, showing that Telkom had the lowest latency at 19 ms. Fastest Mobile Providers Speedtest Intelligence reveals MTN was the fastest mobile operator among top providers in South Africa in Q1 2022 with a median download speed of 51.76 Mbps. Latency Calculating…
FIFA is getting into the streaming service business with a soccer version of Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime. The service is free. The first slate of FIFA+ Originals will feature Ronaldinho, Dani Alves, Ronaldo Nazário, Romelu Lukaku, Lucy Bronze and Carli Lloyd, among others. Launching today, FIFA+ will provide access to live football matches from every corner of the world, interactive games, news, tournament information, ground-breaking, unrivalled video content delivering truly global storytelling around the men’s and women’s game and much more. FIFA is the first sports federation ever to offer such an extensive streaming and content experience to its…
Capitec Bank announced today that funeral plan income soared by 39% to R906 million in 2022 versus R650 million in the previous year. The banking group attributed the rise in funeral plan income to the continued success of the funeral product which increased the number of active policies. As of 28 February 2022, the active book was 1.7 million policies in 2022 financial year compared to 1.2 million policies in 2021. Capitec Bank said the average active funeral book for the current year was about 500 000 policies more than the prior year. “The substantial growth in the average active…
Capitec Bank revealed that its retail clients using digital channels swelled by 17% or 1.9 million new customers to 10.5 million for the year to end-February 2022 versus 8.6 million in 2021. “Active digital users of the banking app, USSD channel, internet banking or a combination of digital channels increased by 17% to 10.1 million, the digital bank informed investors today. Capitec added that clients performed 1.4 billion digital transactions for the year, an increase of 27% versus R800 million in 2021. “We encourage our clients to make use of digital channels to manage their banking costs,” said Capitec. The…
Epic Games announced today a $2 billion or R29 billion round of funding to advance the company’s vision to build a place for kids to play in the metaverse. This round includes investments from existing investor Sony Group Corporation as well as KIRKBI, the family-owned holding and investment company behind The LEGO Group, with each party investing $1 billion or R14.5 billion respectively. “As we reimagine the future of entertainment and play we need partners who share our vision. We have found this in our partnership with Sony and KIRKBI,” said Tim Sweeney, CEO and Founder, Epic Games. “This investment…
MTN announced today it has received a final approval licence to operate its mobile money platform in Nigeria, the continent’s biggest market. MTN said in a statement that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has granted final approval for MoMo Payment Service Bank Limited (MoMo PSB) to commence operations. MTN said it was pleased to announce that MTN Nigeria, as promoter of MoMo PSB, has received a letter dated 8 April 2022 from the CBN addressed to MoMo PSB conveying approval for it to commence the operations. The company said this follows the approval in principle for MoMo PSB dated…