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Smartphones: Under pressure from Chinese companies, Panasonic to exit low-end phones segment
Japan's Panasonic Corp, about a century-old powerhouse in consumer electronics, wouldn't sell feature-and entry-level smartphones in India any longer because of the intense competition from Chinese brands. In a strategy overhaul, Panasonic would also bring the distribution responsibility in-house, and pare down the market-share targets to about 5% in two years from initial projections running into two digits.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Fintech: Africa’s payments and remittances space becoming crowded
Disrupt Africa last week released its Finnovating for Africa: Exploring the African Fintech Ecosystem report, which looks at key trends in terms of the location, focus, fundraising successes and chances of acquisition of fintech start-ups. We asked Tom Jackson, co-founder of Disrupt Africa, about the report’s major takeaways.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech
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Development Engineering: Scaling Tech Solutions from Ideation, to Pilot … to the World?
Scaling technologies that promote economic development is challenging. That's why UC Berkeley established the Development Impact Lab. Natasha Beale, the lab's manager, discusses the concept of "development engineering" and gives examples to illustrate that large-scale impact is indeed possible with the right mix of targeted funding, technological innovation and rigorous field work.
- Categories
- Education, Technology, Telecommunications
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Why mPesa will not be an instant hit in Nigeria
Having since expanded to 10 additional countries within and outside (Albania, Romania, Afghanistan and India) the African continent, mPesa has grown to a platform with over 29.5 million active customers and 287,400 agents. In 2016 alone, it processed about 6 billion transactions, at a peak rate of 529 transactions per second.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Payment Startups Lead Way In Africa’s Booming FinTech Scene
The report finds there has been a boom in the fintech space over the last two years, with more than half of the fintech startups currently operating launching after January 2015.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, remittances
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Can a for-profit company bring connectivity to ultra-remote villages?
An additional 4 million people will soon be able to make and receive calls, send messages and access basic internet services as a result of the multi-million dollar investment in Africa Mobile Networks — a commercial company that builds solar-powered mobile network base stations in ultra-rural communities across sub-Saharan Africa.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Android Pay now used for international P2P transfers, courtesy of WorldRemit
This is a first for Android Pay, which up to now has been used for in-app and contactless payments and to make P2P transfers to people in the same country, but never international P2P money transfers.
- Categories
- Technology
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Inclusive Fintech: Four Lessons for Optimizing Customer and Tech Journeys
Catalyst Fund – a unique accelerator model that provides direct and tailored technical assistance to complement a startup’s skill sets – spent the past year working directly with early-stage fintech businesses in emerging markets. Here are some of the lessons they gathered, both on the tech side and the customer side. A key takeaway: Trust is slowly built but easily destroyed.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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