Author: Gugu Lourie

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…