How Africa’s operators can survive the big squeeze
With competitive pressures increasing, voice markets maturing and price wars becoming more prevalent, telecommunications operators in Africa have to improve their efficiencies, cut costs and find new areas in which to grow, especially if they don’t want to be
Money on the move
Last week’s purchase by Visa of Cape Town-based mobile payments company Fundamo in a US$110m all-cash deal demonstrates clearly how the race is on to provide electronic financial services using cellphones, especially in emerging markets
Vodacom may seek own banking licence
Cellular network operator Vodacom may seek its own banking licence from SA regulators if its mobile transactions platform, M-Pesa, takes off in the way it expects it will in the next few years. Vodacom launched M-Pesa in SA last year
M-Pesa disappoints for Vodacom SA
Mobile money platform M-Pesa has failed to live up to Vodacom’s expectations for the product in SA, Pieter Uys, the group’s CEO, has admitted. Vodacom has registered “more than” 100 000
Inside Kenya’s brutal mobile price war
South Africans will be amazed to learn that Kenyans pay Ksh4/minute, or about 34c/minute, to make a mobile phone call — and that’s one of the most expensive rates on offer in the East African nation
Joosub poised to leave Vodacom
Vodacom appears to be about to lose one of its most senior executives, its SA MD Shameel Joosub, to parent Vodafone. TechCentral has learnt that Joosub is poised to take up a senior-level position at
Vodacom aims for 10m M-Pesa users
Vodacom expects to sign up 10m M-Pesa mobile money users within three years. The telecommunications operator’s director in charge of the product’s launch, Romeo Kumalo, revealed the ambitious target during the product’s launch in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, on Tuesday.
Vodacom sets date for M-Pesa launch
Cellphone group Vodacom and its partner, financial services firm Nedbank, will launch M-Pesa, Kenya’s wildly popular money transfer service, in SA at the end of August. The two companies have set 31 August as the date for the product’s official SA launch.
Vodacom loses Collymore to Safaricom
Vodacom has lost one of its top executives to Kenya’s Safaricom. The JSE-listed cellular group announced after the markets closed on Thursday evening that its chief officer for corporate affairs, Bob Collymore, was leaving to take over as CEO of Safaricom. Collymore, previously a Vodafone executive, will join Safaricom in September. Both Vodacom and Safaricom have significant shareholding from the UK’s Vodafone. Like Vodacom in SA, Safaricom is Kenya’s largest mobile operator.
Inside SA’s mobile payments ‘land grab’
A “land grab” is under way in SA’s cellphone and banking industries as big companies — retailers, banks and telecommunications operators — begin vying for a stake of the fast-emerging market for mobile payments. Significant announcements are being made virtually every week, as SA’s big four banks and the country’s mobile operators make a play [...]
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