Author: Staff Writer

Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi, is set to enter into Africa. Reports say that the company is launching a department in Africa to be headed by its current vice president. Hitherto, the company has been selling phones in Africa since 2015 through distributor partnership in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. Competition is…

Ethiopian Airways has introduced a new initiative to entice global passengers passing through capital city of Addis Ababa. It is now extending free transit tour to global passengers as from Feb. 1. This complimentary city tour package takes passengers in transit with 6 to 8 hours’ time in the running capital, Addis…

The Volkswagen Group has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Ethiopian government to set up an automotive industry plant in the country. The Ethiopian government was represented by a commissioner of Ethiopian Investment Commission, Abebe Abebayehu, while the Volkswagen group was represented by Thomas Schaefer, head of the…

Yemi Alade’s video “Johnny” has hit 100 million views on video-sharing website, YouTube. The feat was shared by Yemi Alade on her Instagram page via a post ”THANK YOU – THANK YOU – THANK YOU. 100MILLIONVIEWS”, on Sunday, January 27, 2019. She thanked her fans for their support for achieving this feat.…

The Australian Open is come and gone but one of the interesting things for Uber Eats was how it capitalised on the event to promote its brand. The online food ordering and delivery platform released some TV ads that involved sport personalities like Rapheal Nadal, Daria Gavrilova, Caroline Wozniacki, Nick Kyrgios and more.…

South African based eCommerce giant, Naspers, has increased its stake in Avito, the leading online general classifieds and property platform in Russia to 99.6%. This was done through its Classifieds group, OLX. The classifieds group invested $1.16 billion to increase its stake from 70.4% to 99.6%. Avito, arguably one of the…

Facebook plans to integrate the technical infrastructure for WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. According to a New York Times report, Mr. Zuckerberg wants to increase the utility of the social network, keeping its billions of users highly engaged inside its ecosystem. However, this would require thousands of Facebook employees to reconfigure how…

Southern Africa based money transfer company, Mukuru, has announced that you can now use WhatsApp to initiate transactions. This makes it one of the first companies to provide this service as WhatsApp is a very popular platform in this region. Globally WhatsApp has over 1.5 billion users and is growing…

Amazon has revealed a new last mile, fully-electric delivery system – Amazon Scout –  that is deliver packages to its customers. These robots were created by Amazon, are the size of a small cooler, and roll along sidewalks at a walking pace. According to Sean Scott, vice president of Amazon Scout in a…

Uber Lite is now available in Kenya and South Africa. Uber Lite is a simple version of the rider app that saves space, works on any network, and on any Android phone. Unlike the regular app which is which is about 170MB, Uber Lite is less than 5MB in size. A…

Tech Logistics company, Kobo360, has opened shop in Togo. The company recently raised $6 million from IFC to fund its operations. According to Obi Uzor, Kobo360’s co-founder, “This is part of our expansion across Africa which has been in effect since last year. Our mission is to build the global logistics…

SecureID Limited, Africa’s industry leader in Card manufacturing, personalization / fulfilment and digital Solutions Company commissioned its fully equipped state-of-the-art Mastercard Card Quality Management (CQM) test laboratory at their facility in Lagos on the 17th of January 2019. The occasion was graced by distinguished guests, representatives of Mastercard led by…

Kenya National Bureau of Statistics is set to acquire 165,000 mobile devices to conduct the upcoming population census. According to Treasury CS Henry Rotich, the use of technology will enhance the quality of data. He adds, “It has inbuilt checks, correction of inconsistent responses and cross-validation with other records.” The exercise…

Xiaomi has just uploaded a video teaser about its double-folding smartphone on Twitter. The video shows the phone manufacturer’s President and Co-founder Bin Lin playing with the smartphone. https://twitter.com/XiangW_/status/1087965485809963008 Bin Lin talked more about the phone in a post on his Weibo account. Translated into English (using Google Translate), it reads…

African based software development outsourcing company, Andela, has announced the completion of a $100 million series D funding to accelerate expansion. This brings Andela’s total venture funding to $180million. It secured $40 million in 2017 and another $24 million in 2016 from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. According to the company, this round…

Respite has come the way of Lagos residents who undergo untold pains in securing apartments in the commercial city. A property management firm, called  RentSmallSmall.com, has been established to address the complexities and intricacies associated with easily finding a suitable, affordable, choice apartment within preferred locations. With the use of…

Growsel, the award-winning nonprofit agricultural crowdfunding organization that connects underserved Base of the Pyramid smallholder farmers with lenders across the globe, and winner of the 2018 Visa Everywhere Initiative Award for Financial Inclusion (Sub Saharan Africa edition), has received a software donation from Oracle NetSuite Social Impact for growing social enterprises. With the…

Wondering why you cannot reach your friends and families in Zimbabwe via WhatsApp and other internet based platforms? Sorry you cannot do this because the telecom companies in Zimbabwe have shut down access to the Internet. No WhatsApp, no Facebook. This is coming on the heels of the recent fuel…

Online eCommerce site Gloo.ng is shutting down next month. This was revealed via a tweet yesterday by the promoter, founder and CEO, Olumide Olusanya. https://twitter.com/docolumide/status/1084753064676986880 The company which started operations as BuyCommonThings.com in 2012 rebranded in 2013 to Gloo.ng. Though he did not give any reason for the closure of…

The Chinese government has launched a satellite TV access project for 1000 villages in Nigeria. This is part of the country’s initiative to provide digital TV access to 10,000 rural communities across Africa. According to the Chinese government, this is to ensure that the economic ties between it and Nigeria are…