Author: Staff Writer

iStore has opened Africa’s first Apple Premium Partner (APP) store at Eastgate Mall, Johannesburg. Inspired by Apple’s iconic store concept, this store will offer the Apple experience and deliver a completely new level of customer service. This Apple Premium Partner concept store will also offer customers an interactive experience, a full assortment of Apple’s innovative products and ecosystem on display, training workshops with professionally trained Apple experts and a world-class Apple experience for Small and Medium Business (SMB) customers. “First of its kind on the African continent, at iStore Eastgate, customer experience and customer care is our number one priority.…

Huawei on Friday announced the appointment of Meng Wanzhou (Sabrina Meng) as rotating chairman of its board of directors after the Chinese tech giant reported stable business in 2022 with revenue of CNY642.3 billion and net profit of CNY35.6 billion. “According to the rotating chairman system of the company, Ms Meng Wanzhou will be the on-duty rotating chairwoman from April 1,2023 to September 30,2023,” the company said in a statement. Thereafter, Hu Houkun will serve as the rotating chairperson until 31 March 2024, and from 1 April 2024, Xu Zhijun will hold the position until 30 September 2024. Huawei continues…

With persistent loadshedding and a rise in vandalism and theft aggravating SA’s fragile economic recovery and impacting service delivery, MTN SA is accelerating its network resilience drive with an investment of R1.5 billion into the programme. CEO at MTN South Africa, Charles Molapisi says the nationwide programme is aimed at warding off the negative impact and frustration caused by power cuts, theft and vandalism and will help enhance network availability and stability over the long-term. “At MTN we are doing all we can to contribute meaningfully to helping alleviate the adverse impact of this crisis on the nation, its people…

Huawei launched its MEGA ICT infrastructure package solution for the African banking market, at Huawei Intelligent Finance Summit for Africa 2023 in Cape Town. The solution aims to ensure that banks and other financial service companies across the continent are positioned to embrace a digital-first approach that will be critical to their ability to remain competitive. Standing for “Multi-domain collaboration, End-to-end experience, Green, and Autonomous”, the MEGA package is designed to help banks meet their ICT requirements in order to achieve full digitalisation. As such, the solutions bundled in with MEGA include ones that help reshape the computing power, storage,…

Clinix Health Group, a black-owned medical provider of quality healthcare services in Soweto, has performed the first orthopaedic knee surgery using the state-of-the-art CORI robotic surgical system at one of its facilities. Dr Shilly Peter Maelane, a renowned orthopaedic surgeon, performed the surgery at the Dr SK Matseke Memorial Hospital in January 2023, using the all-new and advanced CORI robotic surgical system by Smith+Nephew. The use of robotic surgical equipment highlights the future-facing vision that young and inspired doctors have for innovative solutions. Thanks to the technology, a substantial number of patients will enjoy reduced adverse effects compared to traditional…

BozaRide, a local e-hailing platform, has launched in Gauteng, South Africa today and offers the ride-hailing industry safe, convenient and affordable services for both drivers and riders. South Africans who use e-hailing for part-time or full time income, leisure or business travel can look forward to these dynamic and compelling services in the market. BozaRide announced their official entry into the South African market during the launch, which was held in Greenpark, Sandton. The launch was attended by e-hailing drivers, riders, the media and key stakeholders. “We are thrilled to officially introduce ourselves as well as our cutting-edge services for…

JSE-listed 4Sight reported 35.4% rise in full year headline earnings per share (HEPS)  to 2, 379cents a share for the year to end-December 2022. HEPS is SA’s main profit gauge. 4Sight informed investors today that revenue rose  20.7%, gross profit increased 10.1%, and  operating profit grew by 93.9% due to the increased revenue, coupled with improved productivity, governance and control processes. Eric van der Merwe, Group CFO at 4Sight Holdings, said despite a R16-million share buy-back, the company grew  cash balance by 20.1% in 2022 from the strong growth in revenue. The company’s channel continued to experience strong revenue growth,…

If banks want to remain competitive in the face of neo-bank and fintech upstarts, they’ll have to fundamentally change the way they do business to be digital first. And if they’re going to achieve that goal, then working with technology partners to ensure that they have the right infrastructure in place will be crucial. That was the overriding message from the speakers at a media roundtable event hosted during the Huawei Intelligent Finance Summit, in Cape Town, South Africa. Through the course of the session, it also became apparent that if traditional banks are to survive in the changing financial…

Hot on the heels of its announcement that its customers have experienced Zero card fraud, Bank Zero is today announcing a second “Zero milestone”. In the 18 months since its launch, not one of its customers has fallen prey to the phishing scams that are taking in people and businesses all around the world. Kaspersky, a leading security software company, says that phishing attempts more than doubled to over 500 million in 2022, as compared with 2021. According to Fortinet, South Africa was one of the top 20 countries in terms of phishing attacks in 2022. This figure is supported…

Huawei has launched its Huawei Cloud’s all-scenario smart finance solution to Africa. The solution, announced at the Huawei Intelligent Finance Summit for Africa 2023, will effectively drive the digitisation and leapfrogging development of African’s financial and banking sector. In his keynote, which was titled “Choose HUAWEI CLOUD to Move towards All-Scenario Smart Finance”, Harrison Li, CTO of Huawei Cloud, Southern Africa Region explained how the new solution will help African banks act as pioneers in the in the financial sector. As Li pointed out, with the deepening of digital transformation in the financial and banking sectors worldwide, the “all-round cloudification”…

For the modern farmer, machinery is critical in delivering the agricultural output needed to be successful at scale. This is why Titan Global Wheel – providers of the Goodyear Agricultural brand of tyres and rims – has announced a range of Goodyear Lubricants, to further improve the operation and lifespan of this machinery. According to company MD, Theo von Bardeleben, the organisation has adopted a constant focus on innovation and on improving technologies that have been around for decades. Titan Global Wheel also works closely with almost all the major manufacturers, each of which places a strong focus on research…

The outlook for the global economy took a positive turn in the first half of 2023 as inflationary pressures began to ease, but ongoing geopolitical tensions and domestic challenges in key markets are slowing any return to sustained growth, according to the latest forecast from KPMG. According to KPMG’s latest Global Economic Outlook report, global energy prices returning to levels last seen prior to the invasion of Ukraine, combined with easing commodity and food prices, have helped put further downward pressure on inflation for the rest of 2023. Despite the positive news, major economies throughout the world – most recently…

Huawei today unveiled several new solutions aimed at improving operations and maintenance (O&M) for enterprise clients at the Huawei Enterprise O&M Summit 2023. Currently underway in Cape Town, the summit is being run under the theme, “Towards Intelligent Operation” and has seen Huawei bring together more than 40 technical experts, O&M executives, chief technical officers (CTOs), and chief information officers (CIOs) to discuss the latest advances in O&M as well as future opportunities brought about by ongoing digital transformation. During the keynote speech at the summit, Guo Guoqing, President of Huawei Southern Africa Enterprise, pointed out that Huawei’s long history…

As the world marks World Water Day and National Water Week in South Africa from March 20th to 26th, Procter & Gamble (P&G) stands in solidarity with the United Nations and the South African government in highlighting the fundamental human right to accessible clean and safe drinking water. This year’s World Water Day theme, “Accelerating Change to Solve the Water and Sanitation Crisis,” is particularly significant to P&G’s long-standing commitment to improving access to safe drinking water through the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme. In the late 1990s, P&G scientists invented the P&G Purifier of Water technology while attempting to…

Huawei today announced its ‘Non Stop Banking’ initiative. Unveiled at the Huawei Intelligent Finance Summit for Africa 2023, the initiative calls for hand-in-hand collaboration between the ICT and banking industries and facilitate a digital future of ‘non-stop’ services, ‘non-stop’ development, and ‘non-stop’ innovation. In a keynote speech announcing the initiative, Leo Chen, president of Huawei Sub-Saharan Africa Region spoke about why going digital has become such a major imperative for the banking industry. Not only does it make it easier for banks to broaden their customer base, he said, it also saves operational costs, allows them to develop new products,…

On the evening of 15 February, NAPAfrica, the African continent’s largest Internet exchange point (IXP), reached the 3Tbps traffic threshold. This peak in Internet traffic was experienced globally on the back of some significant new gaming releases and software updates. This increase in  NAPAfrica’s average traffic throughput has continued and peaked at 3.44Tbps on 19 March. The continued surge in data traffic is largely thanks to a dynamic African Internet community who have embraced the value of peering, the increasing use of data-intensive applications, enterprises continuing to move into the cloud, and ever-increasing demand for video, content, and gaming delivery…

Liquid Intelligent Technologies announced on Tuesday that it has acquired  Cysiv MEA, a technology company that was  formerly SecureMisr, headquartered in Cairo. The business specialises in providing enterprise cloud and cyber security services to some of Egypt’s leading companies, particularly in the financial services sector. The acquisition allows the London-based group with operations in Africa, UK, the US and Latin America, to bring some of the best global cloud and cyber security products to the Egyptian market. Liquid is a recognised integrator on behalf of some of the biggest technology companies in the world. The organisation will rebrand Cysiv MEA to…

MTN GlobalConnect and BICS today announced the renewal of their partnership to collaborate in international mobility and connectivity for Africa. This partnership will see the complementary strengths of both companies coming together to accelerate the growth of mobile and digital services in Africa. MTN GlobalConnect, a pan-African digital wholesale and infrastructure services company, and BICS, an international digital communications platform business, through this partnership, will extend affordable international communication across Africa. With expertise in innovation and digitalization, African operators & service providers will benefit from a Next-Gen technology-powered bouquet of services.  “It’s important that we form strong partnerships to provide…

Eskom says loadshedding will continue to be suspended until 05:00 on Monday. Thereafter, Stage 1 loadshedding will be implemented from 05:00 until 16:00 on Monday. The companys said stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented from 16:00 on Monday until 05:00 on Tuesday. It added that loadshedding will be again suspended from 05:00 until 16:00 on Tuesday. Then Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented from 16:00 on Tuesday until 16:00 on Wednesday. Eskom will publish a further update as soon as any significant changes occur. Please refer to the table below for the schedule: Breakdowns are currently at 15 645MW of…

MTN Group today alerted the public to beware of a new scam where the Group’s Chairman of the Board, Mcebisi Jonas, is being impersonated to solicit money. Today the group announced that it will be commencing an Internal Audit and Forensic process in an effort to weed out an organised crime syndicate after been made aware of incidents related to the false solicitation of funding under the guise of requests for sponsorship towards the company’s Corporate Social Investment (CSI) projects. “We have been made aware of an increasing number of incidents where our Group Chairman of the Board, Mcebisi Jonas,…

Huawei this week held an event at its Johannesburg campus honouring the winners of the South African iteration of its annual Huawei ICT Competition. At the same event, it kicked off the programme for its 2023 ICT Academy. The 2022 – 2023 ICT Competition is an ICT talent exchange event developed by Huawei for global college and university students. More than 5 000 students from South African tertiary institutions enrolled in the competition, with the top 53 students awarded during this ceremony. The national finalists come from some of South Africa’s top universities such as the University of the Witwatersrand…

Nigeria is at an inflection point where it needs to adopt enabling technologies at scale to support high growth in the telecommunications and digital sectors. Using the right technology as a catalyst, these sectors can support financial inclusion and widespread economic growth. Gur Geva, founder and CEO of iiDENTIFii, a world-leading biometric authentication platform, says, “Biometric technology is a crucial consideration in Nigeria’s ongoing digital expansion. If financial institutions, telecommunications companies and the public sector adopt enterprise-grade biometric authentication, they can provide services to Nigerian consumers safely, efficiently and at scale.” iiDENTIFii is in the process of rolling out its…

Telkom and the University of the Witwatersrand today signed a partnership agreement to establish the new Telkom Industry Solutions Lab. This is a commercial research and development (R&D) facility designed to accelerate synergistic collaboration between industry and academia. This collaboration will bring together multidisciplinary teams from Wits, the Telkom Group and beyond, and will pave the way for cutting-edge innovation in telecommunications and the development of transformative digital solutions for various industries. The new initiative was officially launched today at a ceremony where Jonas Bogoshi, Telkom’s BCX CEO, and Wits University Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, signed the agreement…

UiPath, a leading enterprise automation software company, has collaborated with the Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority (MICT SETA) in South Africa to develop the first national qualification in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region. The initiative aims to provide the workforce of the future with valuable tech skills and will potentially have a positive impact on youth unemployment by creating new jobs in software development, setting up for further growth the expanding automation ecosystem in South Africa. “South Africa has seen the emergence of a strong automation ecosystem, which…

South Africa’s long awaited and highly anticipated rapid payment programme (RPP), PayShap, offers huge potential to boost digital payments and, when used in conjunction with technologies such as Chat Commerce, could serve as a real game changer for businesses. But the disparity in launch pricing from local banks could hinder uptake, blunting the effects of the initiative, says Chat Commerce and mobile messaging leader, Clickatell. “Instant account-based payments like PayShap are designed to help individuals and businesses improve cash flow by cutting the time to process payments from days to seconds. Who would say no to instant access to funds?…