Telecom Operators

Amazon Payment Services has been named the official payment service provider for Etisalat Egypt by e&, with Banque Misr as the online payments acquirer. Through this collaboration, Amazon Payment Services brings a reliable, safe, and simple checkout experience for Etisalat by e&’s customers in Egypt, paying for invoices across billing, subscriptions and device purchases on its digital payment platform. Etisalat Egypt by e& customers will also have the option of paying by installments, thanks to Amazon Payment Services’ tie-up with 10 banks in Egypt, including Banque Misr.

Clickatell, the chat commerce and business messaging leader, has launched its Chat 2 Pay feature for South Africa's largest integrated communications company, Telkom. Telkom’s millions of customers can now make payments in WhatsApp, the country’s largest chat channel.

Christopher Karanja, head of public relations, Safaricom, revealed that the company has reached 2.8 million subscribers roughly five months after the launch of its commercial operations in Ethiopia.

Airtel Kenya has announced the launch of the embedded SIM (e-SIM), which cannot be physically removed from the phone and will enable customers to access the same functionality as someone using a physical sim.

M-Pesa Africa inaugurated a shared services operations center (SSOC) in Nairobi, Kenya. The $2 million center will support M-Pesa's operations in Tanzania, DRC, Mozambique, Lesotho, Ghana and future markets where the service will expand.

Vodafone Group Plc has completed the transfer of its 70% majority shares in Vodafone Ghana (Ghana Telecommunications Company Limited – GTCL) to the Telecel Group after successfully obtaining all the necessary regulatory approvals, including the agreement of the Government of Ghana as a minority shareholder. This is the most recent major change for the Ghanaian telecommunications company since 2008, when Vodafone Group Plc purchased a controlling interest in GTCL and established Vodafone Ghana.

During the signing of a cooperation protocol between the Arab Organization for Industrialization and Etisalat Egypt by e&, the Chairman of the Arab Organization for Industrialization, Major General Engineer Mokhtar Abdel Latif, emphasized the significance of carrying out President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi's directives to foster productive collaboration between state institutions and utilize Egypt's manufacturing capabilities to promote and increase local production rates, localize technology, achieve industrial integration, boost production capacities and reduce imports while increasing the value added to national products with the "Made in Egypt" slogan.

Telecom operator Safaricom is finalizing technical and commercial preparations for its M-Pesa digital payment service in the Ethiopian market, which is expected to be launched in the next financial year, which begins in April.

State electricity utility Eskom is implementing the worst rolling blackouts on record, leaving households in the dark for up to 10 hours a day. The telecom industry is having to ramp up diesel generators to power its vast towers, roll out additional backup batteries and increase security at these sites to protect them from vandalism and theft, additional costs that are putting pressure on their margins.

Orange, a major digital player in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, has presented its strategic plan, Lead the future.