Author: Gugu Lourie

Blue Label Telecoms, the JSE-listed company, said on Wednesday earnings for the six-month period ended 30 November 2020 would increase slightly by between 0% an 4% compared to the same period last year. The company, which owns 45% of struggling Cell C, said the increase in basic earnings per share was attributable to the disposal of the Group’s 47.56% interest in Blue Label Mexico. Blue Label Telecoms and Nasdaq-listed Net 1 have all written down to zero the value of their stakes in Cell C. It also said earnings benefitted from a positive decision to stop trading of the retail…

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Skynamo a market leader in field sales management technology, has acquired UK mobile field sales technology provider, mSeller, to grow their market share in the UK and enhance their order management functionality for field sales teams. The acquisition of mSeller comes a year after Skynamo secured $30million in funding from US-based software investment firm, Five Elms Capital, to accelerate the adoption of its field sales management platform worldwide. Field sales have seen significant disruption and development over the last year, driven by the global pandemic and the resulting need to adapt to new sales and ordering processes and deliver new features.…

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South African Internet of Things (IoT) startup Consumption Information Real Time (CIRT)  today announced a strategic alliance with Microsoft to provide the global IT firms’ clients with access to a stream of innovative IoT solutions. CIRT is a black-owned and managed IoT data insights solutions provider. The deal aims to further digital transformation in the region. As part of this agreement, Microsoft will provide technical guidance, support and access to engineering resources, business development resources, and company solutions’ integration to Microsoft Azure. In addition, once the migration has taken place and the solutions are commercial marketplace transactable, the organisation will provide…

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As an e-mobility pioneer, the BMW Group announced today that it has sold a total of 192,646 electrified BMW and MINI vehicles worldwide in 2020. The German carmaker said this represents an increase of 31.8% over 2019. The company said this means that electromobility is also a significant growth driver for the company in absolute terms. Sales of fully electric vehicles rose by 13%, while plug-in hybrid sales climbed by almost 40%, the carmaker said. It added in Europe, electrified vehicles already accounted for 15% of total sales. The BMW Group has now increased the number of electrified vehicles (pure…

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Every time a new player comes to South Africa to provide video-on-demand (VoD) services there is great fanfare, but with little success so far. The much-vaunted binge-watching is still confined to a few viewers with access to expensive, high-speed broadband. Some of South Africa’s largest companies – MTN, Tiso Blackstar Group (formerly Times Media) and Altron – with deep pockets have unsuccessfully tried to deliver VoD services. They failed to win over local consumers to their VoD services, which were plagued by slow download speeds and the high cost of Internet access. They all ended up closing their platforms. Now,…

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A growing amount of computer equipment from Western nations is being found on toxic eWaste dumps throughout Africa and is being pulled apart by children as young as five. A computer monitor from a prominent Australian bank was recently found on a toxic eWaste dump in Ghana. This raises serious questions about the integrity and regulations of Australia’s growing eWaste problem and even though it is illegal to export redundant computer equipment, that is considered hazardous waste, it is still happening. In South Africa, there are laws that regulate the disposition of eWaste, these include Protection of Personal Information Act…

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Econet Media – a subsidiary of Econet Group, plans to deploy more Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) across Africa to bring global video streaming channels such as Netflix onto its network, the company’s top executive said on Monday. Kwesé Play, which is owned by billionaire Strive Masiyiwa, through its subsidiary Liquid Telecoms has successfully deployed CDNs across Sub-Saharan Africa. Liquid Telecom has been growing rapidly over the last few years fuelled by the demand for infrastructure to support broadband Internet on the African continent. The company has so far built a fibre optic network which spans more than 50,000km and covers…

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South Africa’s grocery retailer Pick n Pay is testing Bitcoin payments in-store. Cape Town-based FinTech business Electrum has enabled Pick n Pay to accept Bitcoin payments in-store.  The company said in a statement that this is “a world first for a major grocery retailer”. “As a result of this groundbreaking innovation project, for a limited time customers at Pick n Pay’s campus store have been able to use the Bitcoin cryptocurrency to purchase groceries and services,” the company said. It added that the checkout process is as simple as scanning a QR code using a Bitcoin wallet app on the customer’s smartphone.…

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Queenstown born entrepreneur Siviwe Mgolodela, who is a BCom student at Stellenbosch University majoring in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, is the brains behind Unorthodox, a start-up company. Unorthodox aims to take on popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. “Presently, people are under so much pressure to look, feel and think a certain way to impress their friends and their followers. As a result, people end up unconsciously communicating lies,” Mgolodela, the founder of Unorthodox, told Techfinancials in an interview over the phone. “Unorthodox is the alternative to existing platforms in that all that pressure is…

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The Look Watch is the first Internet of Things (IoT) enabled standalone smartwatch, developed by Laipac Technology, a Canadian company based in Toronto. The Ontario-based firm informed TalkIoT in an emailed statement today that it will be launching this week the IoT smartwatch at the Mobile World Congress Americas in San Francisco. The company said in a statement that the Look Watch can access internet and make two-way calls without being tethered to a smartphone. The watch requires a Nano-SIM. The maker of IoT solutions added that with its advanced suite of features and software, the Look Watch is…

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