Duncan McLeod is founder and managing editor of TechCentral. With more than 30 years of experience in technology journalism, he has worked for and contributed to a range of publications, including the Financial Mail, the Sunday Times and the Financial Times.
Altron appears to be firing on all cylinders. The technology group, which owns Altech, Bytes and Powertech, has reported a 49% improvement in normalised headline earnings per share on the back of a 12% improvement in revenue. It has hiked its dividend to 80c/share, from 60c in 2013. The strong performance was underpinned
Third mobile operator Cell C intends investing R2,3bn in growing its national network in 2014, to address capacity problems and to cater for a fast expanding subscriber base. The operator said on Tuesday that it had 16,6m subscribers at the end of April, a sharp
Cell C grew its subscriber base in 2013 by 35%, ending the year with 13,6m customers, the mobile operator said at a media conference in Johannesburg on Tuesday. The unlisted company, which isn’t required to disclose its financial numbers, revealed more
Cell C has upped the ante in South Africa’s mobile price war. The mobile operator has slashed prepaid call rates to 66c/minute, from 99c/minute previously. The new 66c tariff excludes its Supacharge recharge benefits, which will continue to be available
The “last mile” fixed-line infrastructure into people homes in South Africa is “awful” and is holding back competition in South Africa’s television broadcasting industry by preventing Internet protocol television and video-on-demand players from launching services
Forget Vodacom’s R899 Smart 4 mini, launched last week. Forget, too, MTN’s entry-level, R499 Steppa smartphone, which the mobile provider launched earlier this year. British semiconductor firm ARM Holdings is predicting the cost of smartphones will drop to just
Two weeks ago, Icasa provisionally awarded licences to five new subscription television broadcasters. It hopes the move will help crack open what has become a highly concentrated market that is now thoroughly dominated by one operator, MultiChoice. The communications regulator will be hoping that it is more successful in this
Telkom has pulled the plug on an invitation for interested bidders to apply to partner the fixed-line telecommunications operator in providing video-on-demand (VOD) services to its customers. It now tells TechCentral that it intends reissuing the tender. The new tender “will be based
Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der Berg are your hosts for this week’s episode of TalkCentral. In the show, they chat about South Africa’s first “social” election. Also in the podcast this week, your hosts discuss the resignation of Alan Knott-Craig as CEO of Cell C and chat about the prospects for the company. And Apple’s apparently
Altron has effectively increased its shareholding in subsidiary Bytes through a R669,2m cash deal in terms of which Bytes South Africa has acquired 27% of its equity held by two empowerment partners. The JSE-listed technology holding company controlled the Venter family said on Friday that it had acquired the shares from Kagiso Strategic
