Author: Gugu Lourie

The resignation of MTN’s [JSE:MTN] group chief executive officer Sifiso Dabengwa should not be seen as an admission of wrongdoing, the operator’s spokesperson said. By Duncan Alfreds, NewsAgency MTN on Monday confirmed that Dabengwa had resigned following the company having been fined $5.2bn in Nigeria for failing to disconnect five million unregistered SIM in a timely manner in the country. MTN said in a market update to shareholders that it’s still engaging with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on its mega fine in Nigeria. Dabengwa further said in a statement on Monday morning that his resignation was in the “interest of the company…

TechFinancials.co.za had a number of readers ask about how Telkom will finance the possible acquisition of Cell C. Telkom informed investors on Monday that it was conducting a due diligence to buy Cell C. By Gugu Lourie Bloomberg sources are saying Oger Telecom has put a R20 billion price tag on Cell C. The question whether Telkom could really afford that price tag of Cell C lies in an article written by TechFinancials.co.za on 4 October 2015 titled:  Cell C could be a great buy for Telkom. In the article, TechFinancials.co.za argued that the answers is yes. Telkom may…

Centurion-based Telkom on Monday confirmed that it is in talks to buy Cell C. By Gugu Lourie Telkom informed investors on Monday morning that it weas in talks to buy Cell C . “Shareholders … are advised that Telkom is in discussions regarding a potential transaction to acquire all of the shares of Cell C. Such transaction, if successfully concluded, may have a material effect on the price of Telkom’s securities,” the telco informed investors on Monday morning. Telkom said it “is currently performing due diligence on Cell C”. TechFinancials.co.za reported on 23 September 2015 that the sale of Cell…

Vodacom, South Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator, provided hope in a cellular sector being hard hit by a scandal rocking MTN – Africa’s largest mobile phone operator. Vodacom on Monday published a stellar sets of financial figures indicating that the company is benefiting from its diversification strategy. By Gugu Lourie Vodacom, which is majority owned by British giant Vodafone, said active customers jumped 6.8% to 65.1 million in the six months to end-September 30. The company’s EBITDA (earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation) rose 13% to R14.7 billion and total revenue was up 6.4% to R40 billion. Furthermore, Vodacom…

  Vodacom Business, which is confident of more growth opportunities for machine-to-machine (M2M), said on Monday M2M customers rose 17.5% to 1.9 million in South Africa. By Gugu Lourie M2M services are also referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT) – a concept of connecting devices to the internet ranging from refrigerators, geysers and smart electricity meters to coffee makers – in such a way that they communicate without the need of human intervention. Vodacom Business Africa, which operates in various African countries, is confident of more growth opportunities for M2M in Africa. Vodacom Business wants to leverage its parent…

 MTN Group announced on Monday that it has  appointed Phuthuma Nhleko as executive chairman in a temporary capacity as Sifiso Dabengwa resigns as CEO.  By Staff Writer   MTN wishes to inform the market that MTN’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Sifiso Dabengwa has resigned.  “Due to the most unfortunate prevailing circumstances occurring at MTN Nigeria, I, in the interest of the Company and its shareholders, have tendered my resignation with immediate effect,” stated Sifiso Dabengwa.  Nhleko, the current Non-executive Chairman has agreed to act as Executive Chairman for a maximum period of 6 months while the Company identifies a successor…

South-African based tech start-up WhereIsMyTransport has been awarded the 2015 Global Grand MobiPrize and joins calls for climate action. By Staff Writer The Cape Town-based transport solutions startup is set to receive the global award at a summit in New Delhi in March 2016. MobiPrize is awarded by Mobi Platform, an initiative of SMART (Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation), a multi-disciplinary initiative at the University of Michigan in the United States. It honours the business venture that has the greatest impact on revitalizing the environment and economy of communities and regions through sustainable transportation/New Mobility enterprise (including improving…

Yoco app, which provides merchants with a mobile point of sale application and card acceptance solution, enables small medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa to securely accept card payments at the store, or on the go. By Staff Writer The Yoco solution includes the mobile app and either a Plug-in Card reader or a Wireless card reader. The Yoco app is available for download in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. You will need an internet or 3G connection to run transactions using Yoco. The app has been tested with 500 merchants actively transacting on the platform.…

MTN for the first time will be offering a high-end dual-SIM smartphone to cater for an increasing number of customers who have multiple SIM cards. By Staff Writer MTN will be ranging the much-anticipated Huawei Mate S to its customers effective 30 October 2015. The Huawei Mate S will be available on My MTNChoice 100 for R499 per month. Customers who take out a contract in November will receive an additional 30GB data for the first month. It is also available on PayAsYouGo for a retail price of R10799. Larry Annetts, Sales and Marketing Executive: MTN South Africa,…

The technology realms of Cloud computing, mobility, Big Data, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are converging to create unprecedented opportunities for logistics operators to better manage their assets and their vehicle traffic. For shipping ports, airports, warehouse dispatch centres, production sites, and fleet company yards, there are scores of benefits for adopting what we refer to as SmartHub Logistics (SHL). By Martin Vergunst, Business Solutions Executive at T-Systems South Africa All of these environments have similar constraints: limited opportunity for expansion, growing volumes of cargo and traffic, high costs associated with downtime, and the constant drive to ‘do more…

Last year South Africa had the most cyber attacks of any country on the continent. In 2014, losses reached an estimated R5 billion annually through cyber crime. The year before, the Norton Report rated South Africa third on the list of the number of cyber victims in the world. Russia and China topped the list. By Basie von Solms It is difficult to objectively determine the level of cyber crime in South Africa as there is currently no legal requirement to report cyber-related crimes. But there is general acceptance that the country faces a major challenge. South Africa’s laws have…

Hackers got into the accounts of 1827 Vodafone UK customers last week, accessing victims’ bank sort codes, the last four digits of their bank accounts, their names and phone numbers. A Vodafone spokesman said in a statement that the incident was driven by criminals using email addresses and passwords acquired from an unknown source external to Vodafone. By Yule Edwards An attack like this demonstrates just how vulnerable we are as consumers. Telcos and other service providers require all sorts of personal and private information from us, including our banking details. This is understandable protection for organisations and key for their…

MTN shares chalked up some gains on Wednesday after wiping off more than R80 billion in the past week on its market value. By Gugu Lourie The stock has been hard hit by skittish investors who were worried about a Nigerian proposed R71 billion fine, which is due to be paid by the South African-based mobile phone operator by 16 November 2015 if a settlement is not reached. The stock gained 3.61% at R161.15 by 12:31pm on Wednesday, giving it a market capitalisation of R288 billion. MTN is still in discussion with the Nigerian authorities over the proposed fine. “MTN…

The Hawks seized 26 card skimming devices at a Serbian national’s house in Alberton, east of Johannesburg, on Tuesday. By Lizeka Tandwa, NewsAgency Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said about 1 500 bank cards and retail shop cards were also found during the raid. “This man has been on our radar for some time now and more arrests connected to this case are imminent. We are certain that he is part of a syndicate and we are close to uncovering everything,” Mulaudzi told News24. The 50-year-old man will appear in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court on Wednesday on charges of fraud. – News24

The sale of iBurst and Broadlink parent company WBS to technology company MultiSource has received final unconditional approval from the Competition Commission and ICASA. By Staff Writer MultiSource has now completed the acquisition of WBS. The current shareholders of MultiSource include consortiums led by Phumlani Moholi, former CTO of MTN, and the family interests of Paul Harris and Michael Jordaan, together with management. The future shareholding structure is being finalised but will include these parties as well as some new strategic ones. Now that the acquisition is finalised, the MultiSource team will have the opportunity to participate at a more…

Many of Shakespeare’s plays depend on mistaken identity. In Twelfth Night, Viola disguises herself as a boy, and is mistaken for her twin brother Sebastian, complicating an already complicated love triangle. By Toby Walsh Don’t forget, boys played girls back then. So we had a boy playing a girl pretending to be a boy mistaken for her twin brother. Have I lost you yet? Not surprisingly, it usually ended in comedy or tragedy. Or both. Shakespeare, of course, was only borrowing the dramatic idea of mistaken identity from the ancient Greeks. But mistaken identity is set to trouble our digital…

MTN Zakhele, the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) scheme of MTN, seems to be unfazed by the troubles bedeviling its parent company MTN Group. Despite MTN likely to face a more than R70 billion fine from the Nigerian authorities, MTN Zakhele is still going ahead with the listing of the  mobile phone operator’s black investors shareholding scheme on the JSE. By Gugu Lourie The leaders of MTN Zakhele – led by Sindi Mabaso-Koyana, the chairperson of MTN Zakhele – announced late on Tuesday that the listing of MTN Zakhele’s ordinary share on the BEE Segment of the main board of the…

Africa and Middle East biggest mobile phone operator MTN on Tuesday afternoon broke its silence on the Nigerian proposed R71 billion fine, saying the telco has operated its business in Africa’s biggest economy with “sound corporate governance”.  By Gugu Lourie In a move to break of its silence in the wake of the surprise more than R70 billion fine, MTN invoked the operators’ history in Africa’s populous country that gave it more than 60 million customers. The South African-based telco said as a company it owes its “founding and growth to the emerging world”. “We are conscious of our responsibility…

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications has expressed its concern at the budgetary management of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa). By Duncan Alfreds, NewsAgency “In regard to Icasa, the committee noted with concern its none achieved targets and the misalignment. That’s why the money was spent, but targets were not reached,” said committee chair Joyce Clementine Moloi-Moropa on the recommendations to parliament on Tuesday. Icasa recently told the committee in its annual report that it had underspent R29m of its annual budget, contributing to an organisational performance score of 29%. The committee also pointed to the vacancy list…

Ratna Siriah has been appointed as the new general manager for FOX International Channels Africa (FIC Africa) effective from next Monday, November 2. By Staff Writer She will be based in Johannesburg where she will assume the management of the FIC Africa team and all the company’s brands distributed in Africa which currently include pay networks in the entertainment, factual and sports segments including FOX, FOX Crime, FOX Life, FX, National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo Wild, National Geographic Gold, FOX Sports, FOX Sports 2 and Baby TV. The announcement was made by Adam Theiler, Executive Vice President of FOX…

Amid all the talk of analytics changing the way organizations operate and helping to uncover new business opportunities, one global financial institution is staying competitive with a more than 30-year-old database deployment. Jay Prag, the chief information officer of South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB), stopped by theCUBE this week to share the fascinating inside story. By Maria Deutscher, Silicon Angle While other users switched to newer software in order to keep up with evolving requirements, the Johannesburg-based financial services provider has continuously  improved and expanded upon implementation of IBM Corp.’s Information Management System since the original rollout in 1983.  Approximately…

South Korean electronics giant Samsung is leaving its smartphone rivals in South Africa in its dust, according to market research. By Duncan Alfreds, NewsAgency Samsung grew its local smartphone market share to 56.6%, well ahead of Vodacom’s smartphone brands at 7.6% and Huawei (6.9%), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). While Apple is involved in a global struggle for dominance with Samsung, the iPhone maker has just 4% market share in SA, behind Nokia (now Microsoft) at 5.3%, IDC data shows. “Samsung is a trusted brand in South Africa, has handsets across the affordability spectrum and is available in all…

Vox Telecom has launched Sitebuilder, a website development solution that enables end users and small businesses to create and maintain professional and fully responsive websites, with ease. By Staff Writer Small medium enterprises (SMEs) are an increasingly important, but underserviced market when it comes to digital communications tools, and in particular, website development.  Sitebuilder provides small business owners with the ability to manage, build and add features to their website, without having to depend on an external party. “Sitebuilder is the first of many new developments in our easy-to-use digital management solutions and provides users with an extraordinary degree of…

“In what is a first-to-market response by Absa, customers now also have the ability to personally reverse unauthorised debit orders at any time by logging on to Absa Online” says Marius de la Rey, Chief Executive, Customer Channels & Distribution, Barclays Africa Retail and Business Banking. By Staff Writer Absa customers have been empowered to view all debit orders that have gone off their accounts during a given period of time, request that any debit order which has taken place in the last 40 days be reversed (and they will receive the money back in their account instantly) as well…

A little bit of good news after a really tough week for MTN, the Nigerian telecoms watchdog has renewed the mobile phone operator’s licence until 31 August 2021. By Gugu Lourie The Nigerian Communications Commission has approved the renewal,and extension of the tenure of MTN’s operating spectrum in the 900MHz and 1800MHz frequency bands. “With this renewal and extension, MTN’s operating spectrum which was issued along with the Digital Mobile License (DML) in 2001 (with an original expiry date of February 2016), has now been extended to 31 August 2021,” MTN informed investors on Tuesday. The South Africa-based operator…