Affordable smartphones are starting to transform the landscape in Africa, getting millions of people across the continent online for the first time, but prices need to fall further and content and applications need to be tailored for local communities and languages, experts said this week
On Tuesday, technology market research firm World Wide Worx and online media monitoring company Fuseware released their annual report on the South African social media landscape. Their findings reveal that visual content is the biggest driving factor behind the uptake and
Big companies are splashing unprecedented amounts of cash into e-retail in South Africa, with the likes of online merchandiser Takealot.com recently raising R1bn of investment for expansion in the country and sub-Saharan Africa, and Naspers ploughing R5,6bn into e-commerce around the globe
Takealot made headlines last month when it secured about R1bn in funding from shareholder Tiger Global Management, an international investment firm. CEO Kim Reid told TechCentral when the deal was announced that Takealot is on an aggressive growth path in an effort to tap into what he called
Telkom’s second attempt in seven years at acquiring Business Connexion (BCX), the listed IT services group, will probably get the nod from South Africa’s competition authorities, analysts believe. Telkom on Thursday announced it had made a R2,7bn all-cash offer to buy out the JSE-listed IT services company. In 2004, Telkom bid
MasterCard’s annual Online Behaviour Study, presented by World Wide Worx, has revealed that the availability of secure payment facilities is most critical to South Africans when they shop online. The study revealed that 90% of respondents cite the availability
Communications minister Yunus Carrim has named CSIR president Sibusiso Sibisi and Research ICT Africa director Allison Gillwald as chair and deputy chair respectively of a new National Broadband Advisory Council, which has been established to advise the minister on the implementation of South Africa Connect
Facebook is stumping up US$19bn in cash and shares to buy popular instant messaging platform WhatsApp, which has 450m active monthly users and which is adding a million new users a month. The deal could have been driven, at least in part, by a “potentially massive threat from the
Stellenbosch-based mobile messaging platform and social network Mxit is taking aim at the vast Indian market, launching the service in the south Asian powerhouse this week in the hope of dramatically expanding its reach. The South African team
Want access to as many as 12m Wi-Fi hotspots around the world, free of charge? That’s effectively what Naspers-owned Internet service provider MWeb is promising as part of a deal it’s signed with Spanish company Fon, which claims to offer the world’s
