Author: Cyrus

Safaricom is reported by Business Daily to have taken 13 former dealers to court over fraud. The dealers are reported to have presented forged bank slips and bankers cheques as proof of payment for requisitioned products. With no proper verifications, Safaricom is reported have released goods to the dealers. Most of the former dealers are reported have made counter claims against Safaricom arguing that it was upon Safaricom to verify all payments before releasing goods. All Safaricom dealers are provided with unique login details for the dealer portal. The dealers would then be required to pay for products ordered through…

Paysure Ltd has partnered with Kenswitch and Chase bank to offer an online payments solution targeted at the growing e-commerce market in the region. The deal allows Kenswitch member bank cardholders can now make purchases on the internet using their debit or prepaid cards. Paysure being one of the recipients of the 2012/13 Tandaa Kenya grant, has developed a web application that facilitates the usage of Kenswitch cards to make payments over the internet. The online paymnent solution enables entities which wishes to receive payment remotely to do so in a secure and flexible way, whether or not they have…

Kenyans might be lucky if the claims by my sources at Safaricom are true. Vodacom South Africa has confirmed in a tweet that it will be selling the Samsung Galaxy S3 at a whooping Ksh 90,000 (R8,979). Now that is waaay… up. I guess we are lucky because both Safaricom and Samsung have indicated that they were pushing to have the device retail below Ksh 55,000 but they believe that they can manage only Ksh 59,999. On contract, the device will retail at Ksh 3,500 (R349) per month for 24 months (yes 24 months). The contract offer will be bundled…

Huawei has inaugurated its ICT training center in Kinshasa, DRC. The event was officiated by His Excellency Joseph Kabila, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo supported by Huawei Senior Vice President Mr. Guo Tian Min. Located at Kinshasa railway station edge, the 6 storey training center covers an area of 8000 square meters, consisting of the training building and the dormitory for trainers and trainees. It includes a training equipment room, cloud computing room, Big and small training room, library, teachers’ office, telepresence conference room, video conferencing room, reception room, conference rooms, coffee breaks, smoking and prayer rooms. The…

Bharti Airtel has announced that it plan to invest USD 100 million in its operations in Rwanda over the next three years. The company plans to rollout a 3G network and a Mobile Money platform in the future. These were revealed when Manoj Kohli, CEO (International) & Joint MD, Bharti Airtel, met with the President of Rwanda to discuss the teleco’s progress in the country. The courtesy visit comes two months after Airtel launched operations in Rwanda. Mr. Kohli also explained that although Kigali is currently operating on a 2G network, the company also plans to launch 3G services in…

Things are happening at Naspers owned verticals. It seems that the millions spent on Dealfish and Mocality have not bought the two verticals love. First there was this rumour in March on Nigeria’s blogosphere that MIH had sold Deafish to Argentina based OLX Classifieds. Then MIH did some fire fighting and fought all rumours. Despite the denials, Dealfish South Africa (dealfish.co.za) which was branded as KalahariAds, was secretly pushed to OLX (84% owned by Naspers) and heavily marketed in the country. Despite the denials, increased activities by OLX have been witnessed in the Kenyan internet scene. Few months ago, www.olx.co.ke and www.olx.com.ng…

Safaricom has reportedly ordered the iconic Samsung device and will start selling it in 2 – 3 weeks at an amazing Ksh 59,999. With the social media euphoria drawn during the launch coupled with interest of owners of the Galaxy Tab, Galaxy S and Galaxy S2 devices, the company hope to drive smartphone uptake in the country with an aggressive push of the device. The company hopes to use the influence and reach social media to drive the uptake of the iconic device. Already the device is selling on Amazon at $800 (Ksh 67,000) meaning that Safaricom will be subsidising the cost.…

Safaricom has this afternoon restored all its voice and data services to customers in Western Kenya. This follows completion of repair works on a cable cut that had occurred this morning and disrupted services in the Western Kenya network. The disruption, which occurred at 10:00 a.m this morning, was traced to a cable cut in Kisumu caused by road construction works. The service outage affected Wimax, 3G and 2G voice and data services to customers in the towns of Eldoret, Kisumu and Webuye. It also affected operations in all Safaricom shops in Kisumu, Eldoret, Kitale, Kakamega and Kisii. Safaricom CEO,…

Samsung is relenting after many would-be owners of its recently launched Galaxy Pocket questioned its features in comparison to Huawei IDEOS or the recently launched Huawei Gaga. The electronics giant has announced through its Facebook page that buyers will get a “free Galaxy Pocket” with each purchased at one of the 18 shops listed. The Facebook message reads: Ladies and gentleman the list of the stores are:(BUY ONE GET ONE FREE) NAIROBI – 1. SAFARITEL, MAMA NGINA STREET 2. FONE EXPRESS HAILE SAELASSIE  3. MAKARIM, HILTON ARCARDE 4. FONE EXPRESS,NAKUMATT GALLERIA  5. SAFARICOM, BURU BURU 6. SAFARICOM, EASTLEIGH 7. SAFARICOM,NAKUMAT MEGA …

Just as we predicted that Google would want to colonise every part of African’s life, the company has now launched a prepaid debit card which is Near Field Communications (NFC) enabled used for purchase of bus fare in Nairobi. Fearing to launch a direct competition to M-Pesa, the company is testing the waters through the Beba card which is targeted at commuters using the Citi Hoppa buses. Google hopes to help commuters avoid the abrupt hiking of bus fares as is common in Nairobi. The route charges are pre-loaded on to the system so this will mean that either commuters…

Just after Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Pocket in the country, Huawei through Orange Kenya has today unveiled a new entry-level smartphone targeting the same category of users targeted by the Galaxy Pocket. The Huawei Gaga which will be retailing for KSh 8,799 is targeted at middle income earners, students and young professionals. The device packs social media offerings with default apps dedicated to Facebook and Twitter use. The Huawei U8180 IDEOS X1 a.k.a Huawei Gaga will be bundled with free one month unlimited data from Orange. The device has a 3.5 mega pixel camera. The Orange Kenya one month unlimited…

Samsung Electronics East Africa has today unveiled the Galaxy Pocket smartphone first revealed to Africa at the Samsung Africa Forum 2012 in Cape Town. The device which will retail at Ksh 9,999 is particularly targeted at the African users who loves social media and entertainment. With the device, Samsung is targeting the 10 – 15% (8 to 15 million users) smartphone market in the region who are mostly entry level users. The electronic giant is riding behind recent gains in all verticals of the mobile phone market to promise users superior products backed up by 2 years warranty. In a…

MedAfrica has won the Ericsson Application Awards 2012 banking an estimated Ksh 1.6 Million. The team represented by Jackie Akai, Caroline Ngugi and Steve Mutinda were on hand in Stockholm Sweden to receive their 15,000 Euro cheque. MedAfrica and Kommunity Bora Among the 2012 Ericsson Apps Challenge Finalists   The apps challenge themed “Apps for the Networked Society” , aimed to promote innovations from a variety of environments, places and situation. Video Demo of MedAfrica

KCB yesterday launched its diaspora targeted banking platform. The banking platform which is also a portal is available on www.kcbbankgroup.com/diaspora. The platform was built with every East African working out of his/her country in mind. The bank with branches in six East African countries (South Sudan, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda) looks to offer the East Africans a one-stop platform where they can invest as well as remit money back home. From the platform, you can download account opening documents, fill them and with the filled documents on hand you can visit a KCB authorised agent, Embassy, notary Public…

After the previous edition in 2011, France Telecom – Orange is launching the second edition of its Orange African Social Venture Prize. The goal is to promote social innovation that supports development through Information and Communication Technology (ICT). With this prize, Orange will provide a financial endowment as well as expert support to the young companies that put forward innovative projects with a significant social impact. Last year, more than 600 candidates responded to the call for projects where the final three prize-winners of the first edition, announced at the AfricaCom Awards in Cape Town in November 2011, proposed the following…