France’s Orange has signed a deal to allow tower operator IHS to oversee more than 2 000 of its towers in the West African markets of Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon. Though Orange will continue to own the towers, IHS will manage them for the next 15 years Surplus space on
Vodacom has hired a top expert in electronic payments and financial services to head its mobile commerce division. The telecommunications operator has appointed Herman Singh, formerly head of Standard Bank’s innovation arm, Beyond Payments, as its managing executive for mobile commerce. Singh
Vodacom’s revenues in South Africa have come under pressure in the three months ended 31 December 2012, and the operator is blaming increased price competition from rivals, along with other factors, for the muted performance. South Africa is Vodacom’s most
Sales of digital set-top boxes, which went on sale last month in Kenya, have been sluggish. The boxes are required to convert digital terrestrial broadcasting signals so that that the East African country can switch off analogue broadcasts before the International Telecommunication
The continent is being hailed as a global cellphone banking and payments innovation hub, but it seems the sector will be coming under increasing regulatory scrutiny as the relationships between cellphone operators and banks are placed under the spotlight. A survey of players in the African
MTN and Pick n Pay are poised to launch a mobile bank. Called Tyme, which stands for “take your money everywhere”, the venture will piggyback on the banking licence held by Bank of Athens. Tyme hopes to make mobile money transfers and mobile banking commonplace in South Africa, where consumers
Indian telecommunications company Bharti Airtel says it now has more than 60m active users in Africa. It added 10m subscribers in less than 12 months and says this growth has helped make it the fourth largest mobile operator worldwide and Airtel one of the largest players in Africa. The company
It will take a century for a poor household to tweet its way out of poverty. That’s a very long time for anyone wondering where their next meal is coming from. But it’s a significant new finding because it proves once and for all that social media and access to information and communication technology
M-Pesa, which has more than 14m subscribers in Kenya, could be forced to increase transaction costs by 10% as East African nation’s treasury looks to impose a levy on transactions made using the mobile money transfer service. Though Kenya’s treasury says it expects mobile
Nedbank, the financial services partner in Vodacom’s M-Pesa mobile payments initiative, says it is “disappointed” that the service hasn’t taken off as fast as it had hoped for but it remains committed to the venture and will introduce new products and streamlined services soon in an effort to
