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The Power of Messaging: How WhatsApp is Becoming a Not-So-Secret Weapon Among Small Enterprises in Emerging Markets
Doing business in emerging markets requires significant and often remote communication – from managing inventory to keeping track of transactions and employees in the field. But though donor-funded digitization efforts often focus on building payments use cases, some of the most needed advancements are happening via existing communications channels like WhatsApp, says Strategic Impact Advisors VP Hamilton McNutt. He explores the innovative ways companies are using WhatsApp – and how messaging apps could better serve their needs.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
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Safaricom increases e-commerce stakes after Alibaba Group deal
“This partnership seeks to connect Kenyans to even more business opportunities by enabling them to seamlessly source, purchase and import goods from the world’s leading manufacturers,” Safaricom Chief customer officer Sylvia Mulinge said.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Nigeria, others to push mobile money accounts to 110 million by 2024, says GSMA
“The mobile money industry is fast-evolving against a backdrop of increasing internet access and smartphone adoption, and now more than ever, mobile’s unparalleled global scale provides a tremendous opportunity to reach the 1.7 billion people who remain financially excluded, said Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA.”
- Categories
- Finance, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Ivory Coast telcos in mobile money tax dispute
The Telecommunications/ICT Regulatory Authority of Côte d'Ivoire (ARTCI) has directed mobile operators to immediately stop transferring the additional cost of mobile money transactions onto the consumer.
- Categories
- Finance, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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African Internet Connectivity Gets A Mobile World Congress Boost
The continent's first live 5G network in South Africa, the world's first 400Gbps backbone network in Kenya and a 750 kilometer (km) fiberoptic network in Nigeria's Edo and Ogun States were announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Smart feature phones with “light” operating systems are the future of Africa’s mobile growth
Africa’s young and fast-expanding markets are increasingly seen by the telecoms industry as the future of growth. Various African governments, operators, and entrepreneurs have announced or launched plans to develop their own home-grown phones.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Telecom companies in Uganda face legal battle on unclaimed Mobile Money balances
Gideon Tugume, the Executive Director of Human Rights Defenders – Uganda dragged the telecoms to court demanding that they submit all unclaimed Mobile Money and Airtime balances to the state. He says the money should be sent to the consolidated fund instead of reverting to the service provider.
- Categories
- Finance, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Ethiopia’s plan to privatize and split up its mobile phone monopoly won’t be as easy as it looks
With over 100 million people, Ethiopia has had one of the world’s fastest-growing economies for years now. Yet the landlocked nation has remained poor, with a per capita income below $800, according to the World Bank. Its journey to become a lower-middle-income nation by 2025 has also been hampered, and currently ranks 167 out of 190 in the ease of doing business.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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