Business Archives - Page 2 of 45

Oct92018 by Alex ReeceNo Comments

Taxify overtakes Uber in African cities

Uber was the pioneer taxi hailing app in Africa, but that seems to be changing, the Estonian company Taxify is taking the fight for market share in Africa with Uber to places where Uber isn’t. Much of Taxify’s expansion has been due to being bankrolled by its recent $175 million capital raise—a funding round which valued the company at more than $1 billion. Taxify’s backers include Daimler, the German car giant and Didi Chuxing. In South Africa, Taxify is in fierce competition with Uber in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth but has also expanded to Polokwane. It is set to also launch in East London later this month. In addition to Lagos and Abuja, the only two cities where Uber currently operates in Nigeria, Taxify has launched operations in Ibadan, Nigeria’s largest

Oct12018 by editorNo Comments

Telkom’s T-Kash now integrated with M-Pesa to allow interoperability initiative

Business, Mobile, Technology

Telkom T-Kash joins M-Pesa and Airtel Money in the interoperability initiative effective October 4th meaning subscribers will no longer struggle with having to cash the voucher within seven days. A joint statement issued by the three mobile operators states the initiative is a significant step towards a more integrated mobile money ecosystem and a boost to the financial inclusion agenda in Kenya. “With the advent of interoperability, customers can send and receive money from customers on a different network. The money received from a different network is directly added to the customer’s account balance the same way it would, had it been sent from the same network,” read the statement. Interoperability of the three services also presents customers with a cost advantage as the three pro

Sep142018 by editorNo Comments

Jumia might be on the verge of a collapse, MTN not selling stake share

Business, Startups, Technology

Venture Beat reports that Jumia, one of Nigeria’s largest online retailers has allegedly laid off 300 of its workers in Nigeria, which accounts for about 30% of its 1000-person workforce in Nigeria. This has raised concerns as to whether the end is near for the online retailer and what this could mean for the Rocket-funded e-commerce outfit. The major investor in Jumia, Rocket internet has a reputation for downsizing. In a similar event, Rocket Internet closed some of its offices in Turkey in 2012, firing 400 workers in the process. While a similar event may be playing out in Nigeria, Kaymu (another Rocket Internet portfolio company) closed its Zambia office. Citing “macroeconomic reasons,” the online shopping platform shut down its operations in Zambia at the beginning of the month.

Sep112018 by Lynn WandiaNo Comments

Ethereum Co-Founder Says Crypto Growth In Near its ‘Ceiling’

Business, Technology

The days of explosive growth in the blockchain industry have likely come and gone now the average person is aware of its existence, according to Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum. “The blockchain space is getting to the point where there’s a ceiling in sight,” Buterin said in a Sept. 8 interview with Bloomberg at the Ethereum Industry Summit conference in Hong Kong. “If you talk to the average educated person at this point, they probably have heard of blockchain at least once. There isn’t an opportunity for yet another 1,000-times growth in anything in the space anymore.” Vitalik Buterin Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Growth in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the blockchain community through its first six or seven years was dependent on mark

Aug172018 by Lynn WandiaNo Comments

Twitter officially kills third-party app features

Business, Internet, social media

Micro-blogging company Twitter has removed support for a number of third-party applications and outdated developer tools. The company said in a blog post it chose to stop supporting a number of third-party applications to focus on improving Twitter for iOS, Android, and its web platform. The company also dropped support for Twitter on Apple Watch and Twitter for Mac, and has replaced its Twitter for Windows App with its new web application. In response third-party applications such as Tweetbot has already removed certain functionality to mitigate the effect of these changes, crippling many of its features. “We feel the best Twitter experience we can provide today is through our owned and operated Twitter for iOS and Android apps, as well as desktop and mobile twitter.com,” said Twit