Devices & Platforms

Together with Sequoia Capital India and Flourish Ventures, Veon has become the first strategic corporate investor in Bangladesh’s ShopUp, a full-stack B2B commerce platform for small businesses.

In a bid to encourage domestic smartphone manufacturing, India’s government has granted incentives worth INR450 billion ($6.12 billion) to 16 local and overseas firms.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi deployed mobile retail stores to reach rural areas of India, in a bid to recover sales lost during the shutdown of the country’s economy.

Telkom Kenya and KaiOS Technologies unveiled the Kaduda T-Smart to the Kenyan market, marking the first operator launch for a KaiOS smart feature phone in the country.

We reported last week that incentives to encourage local production of electronics in India were encountering problems attracting major names from the telecommunications network equipment business. Smartphone makers, by contrast, seem a lot more enthusiastic.

Motorola Solutions has launched a new two-way radio device specially designed for small and medium businesses in Sub Saharan Africa.

There’s no denying that, even in post-lockdown India, demand for smartphones is still strong – but why can supply not keep up?

According to reports in the regional press and Reuters, a Vietnam-made 5G smartphone is on the way.

It’s not the first piece of research to say so, but a new study offers a useful reminder that having access to mobile phones empowers women in less developed countries.

Findings quoted in the Indian press from market research companies IDC and Counterpoint Research indicate that India is facing its first-ever year of decline in smartphone sales; a drop of 13-15 percent is expected.

East African press outlets are reporting that Uganda is to begin manufacturing its first smartphones. The manufacturing partner will be Chinese brand SIMI.

India’s handset manufacturers are facing an even more uncertain time since the Ministry of Home Affairs’ decision last weekend that non-essentials cannot be sold online during the nationwide lockdown. ‘Non-essentials’ in this case includes smartphones.

Some encouraging news in this difficult time comes from the World Bank, highlighting how distance learning is being rolled out in a number of African countries during the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns.

Last year’s Indian gains in global smartphone production due to the US-China trade war could be lost thanks to the coronavirus lockdown.

According to local news reports in the Gulf region, the leading UAE operator Etisalat has expanded its CloudTalk Meeting platform. It will now enable up to 50 simultaneous participants at any one time.

Emirates-headquartered operator Etisalat has announced the launch of Business Edge, a comprehensive platform offering a wide range of services and solutions that cater to small and medium-sized enterprises.

A new survey that has gained a lot of interest in the Indian press says that 81 percent of mobile phone users in the country now use a 4G smartphone.

India has given Apple the go-ahead to open branded retail outlets in the market, with the US firm planning a launch in 2021.

According to local press reports, Malaysia’s Axiata Group, one of the leading telecommunications groups in Asia, is planning to go ahead with a bid for a digital banking licence in the country.

Vodafone Idea Business Services (VIBS), the enterprise arm of Indian operator Vodafone Idea, has announced the launch of Vodafone Secure Device Manager (VSDM), powered by IBM Security MaaS360, a unified end-point management (UEM) system.

Pan-African operator Africell has launched its first 3G smart feature phone, afriphone.

Technology from live video streaming company LiveU is offering an alternative to traditional satellite, fibre and microwave technology for live coverage of South Africa’s popular horse racing industry.

Kia Motors India, a division of the South Korean company Kia Motors, is planning to utilize IoT Solutions from Vodafone Idea Business Services, a division of the Indian operator Vodafone Idea, to enable an array of connected car services.

China Mobile has revealed plans to release a proprietary 5G smartphone as part of its drive to launch the technology in more than 50 Chinese cities before 2020.