Tag: tech
Related Posts
China’s Tech Lead in Africa Highlights B3W’s Biggest Problem
When Joe Biden took over from Donald Trump, many predicted that Trump’s foreign policy would soon follow him out the door. A few months down the line, it’s become clear that they agreed more frequently than expected even if their styles are very different. One example is ...
Nigeria-Based, Chinese-Backed Mobile Money Platform OPay Raises $400 Million From Softbank-Led Round
The Nigeria-based, Chinese-owned mobile payment platform OPay closed its latest funding round with $400 million of new investment in a deal that values the company at an impressive $2 billion. This latest fundraising round marks was led by Japanese ...
Huawei Launched Its New Android-Free Mobile Operating System That Will Likely Soon Find Its Way to Africa
Chinese technology giant Huawei launched its new mobile operating system Harmony OS on Wednesday as part of an effort to recover from U.S. sanctions that crippled much of its smartphone business. This new Google-free OS will debut in Asia ...
Be Wary of All Those “Hyperbolic” Reports Warning of the Dangers of Chinese Technology
The fear that China is going to export digital authoritarianism and repression to Africa is way overblown and oversimplified in Western media reports and think tank analysis cautions Iginio Gagliardone, a media scholar at Wits University in Johannesburg and one of the world's foremost scholars ...
CNN Ran a Story on Big Tech Expanding in Africa That Didn’t Mention a Single Chinese or European Company
CNN International broadcast a report over the weekend purportedly about "how big tech is expanding in Africa" yet the story only mentioned five major U.S. tech companies and not one from either Europe or Asia. This is somewhat odd given that ...
Naspers Stock Rises on White House Assurances That Proposed WeChat Ban Won’t be as Broad as Previously Feared
Investors in Africa's most valuable public company, Naspers, breathed a sigh of relief on Monday after hearing that any White House measures against WeChat and its parent company Tencent won't be as broad as initially feared. A Naspers subsidiary is Tencent's ...
The China-Funded Mobile Browser That’s Zeroing in on the African Market
Four years ago, Opera was most famous for Opera Mini, a simple data compression browser, gaining traction in African countries with high data costs. Today, Opera’s software holdings have developed into an interconnected nexus spanning file sharing, news, digital payments, ride hailing, food delivery and news.
OPay’s Failure Prompts Reflection in Nigeria’s Tech Community
Last week's announcement by the Chinese-owned Nigerian-based e-commerce and payments company OPay to suspend four of its services (ORide, OTrade, OCar, OFood) caught a lot of people by surprise. After raising an impressive $170 million in a Series B funding round last fall from some ...
Transsion’s VC Fund Makes First Investment in an African Fintech Start-Up; the Chinese-owned Opera Mobile Browser Well Positioned to Capitalize on Financial Services
International interest in Africa's burgeoning fintech sector dropped considerably in the first half of the year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but now we're starting to see some of the first signs of interest from Chinese VCs and other investors.
Consortium of Chinese Smartphone Makers Launch New Effort to Challenge Google’s Play Store’s Dominance
Four of China's largest smartphone makers have launched a new initiative to build an alternative app marketplace to challenge the dominant Google Play store. Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo have come together to form the Global Developer Service Alliance (GDSA), a new platform for dev games, ...
Chinese Investors Have a Palpable Sense of Optimism About the African Market That Most Others Just Don’t Seem to Share
Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Aubrey Hruby shared her views about this weekend's "Netpreneur" competition organized by the Jack Ma Foundation in Accra, Ghana where she picked up on the same sense of optimism and excitement about the African market that Chinese investors seem ...
Jack Ma is the New Face of Chinese Soft Power in Africa
Forget CGTN, China Daily or the countless other propaganda outlets the Chinese deploy in Africa to exert soft power, none of them are capable of generating the kind of impact that Jack Ma did this past week with his business and wildlife conservation awards. ...