[Africa Tech Week] Safaricom marks its 18th- anniversary, unveils new brand campaign

Kenya’s leading telco Safaricom has been top on the news this week. The company marked its 18th year anniversary since the official launch on October 23rd, 2000. As part of 18th-anniversary celebrations that began this week, the mobile operator unveiled a new brand campaign targeted at reinforcing its commitment to customers.

Safaricom also unveiled a new retail outlet in Eldoret town as part of its regional expansion strategy to reach customers in the regions. The company also released its 7th Sustainable Business Report which showed that its value had increased up to 12 per cent. Recently, Safaricom was also named among the companies with the best corporate governance practices among listed companies in Kenya by Cytonn Investments.

Still on matters telcos, Telkom Kenya this week announced that it will send home 500 employees in a workforce restructuring exercise. Since 2016, Telkom says it has successfully rebranded, invested KSh 14 Billion into its business to expand its network coverage, launched 4G services and its MFS platform, T-kash. Last month, cross-network money transfer between it and Safaricom went live. In a bid to cater for the growing demand for data the company last month also unveiled 200 new 4G sites within Nairobi and its environs.

Mastercard in partnership with M-KOPA Solar and Centenary Bank, celebrated the first ‘pay-as-you-go’ QR transaction this week, officially launching the initiative, which provides a simple and inexpensive way to power the homes and businesses of Ugandans. This was not the only news that came from Mastercard this week, the company's Farmer Network, previously known as 2KUZE, received the Best AgTech solution award at the Digital Inclusion Awards recently held in Nairobi, Kenya. The company has over the past few months also reinforced its commitment to drive digital growth in Africa. The company’s CEO, Ajay Banga visited Zimbabwe to show Mastercard's support for the country's drive to create a new wave of digital payments and inclusive growth.

African startups were also in the news this week. There was news of  AirAdvance, a fintech startup from South Africa that provides those offering private accommodation through Airbnb easy access to affordable finance. Collaborative medicine platform REMA was named the winner of Ivory Coast round of Seedstars World. The startup will now represent the country at the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland to compete for up to USD one million in equity investment and other prizes.  Seedstars World is looking for smart startups that solve regional issues and/or develop profitable products for the global market. We have previously covered winners from other African countries like Bandim Online from Guinea Bissau, Integrated opinion platform Wenadata from Mozambique, Labes Key – schoolap from World Kinshasa among others.

Still, on Startups, South African media conglomerate Naspers announced that it has set up a R1.4bn ($96m)  Naspers Foundry fund to invest into South African technology startups. The money will fund and support startups seeking to address big societal needs.

Google this week brought together Kenyan content creators to train them on how they can monetize and grow their YouTube fan base and use other online tools. This came just a few weeks after the company announced a Sh100 million grant to train more than 100,000 Kenyan smallholder farmers in digital skills.

There was also some news from Africa’s banking sector this week. Equity Bank bagged accolades during the 2018 East Africa Excellence Awards held in Nairobi. Remember just recently, the bank confirmed and named Polycarp Igathe as the Managing Director of Equity Bank Kenya.  In  Nigeria, First Bank, in partnership with Clickatell’s Transact division, commercially launched their Chat Banking channel on WhatsApp. This is not the only partnership we have seen coming from First Bank of Nigeria. The bank partnered with Microsoft to support SMEs in the country.  It also joined forces with World Remit for instant money transfers to First Bank accounts in Nigeria.

HFC, the banking subsidiary of HF Group unveiled improved loan and transaction limits to its customers and extended access to include USSD via *618# to complement its HF Whizz App channel currently available on both Android Play store and iOS Appstore. The company was also in the news recently for calling on local developers to create complementary apps to enhance its HF Whizz app.

This week, Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced that it will open an infrastructure region in South Africa in the first half of 2020. Last year, Teraco, Africa’s largest and only vendor-neutral colocation data centre, announced the availability of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect through Teraco’s Johannesburg JB1 and Cape Town CT1 data centres. Last month, Kenya’s postal service provider the Kenya Postal Corporation of Kenya was also eyeing a deal with Amazon that will see it become their official logistics partner in the country.

Other top highlights of the week included remittance firm Okapi Finance announcing plans to expand in Botswana, Nigeria and The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by the end of 2018. Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) and TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) signing a financing agreement worth $1.57 Million. Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma also witnessed the signing of three Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) between the Rwandan Government and Alibaba establishing an eWTP (electronic world trade platform) hub in Rwanda.