2019 - itbusinessdirect

New US online Black Friday sales biggest ever?

December 3, 2019September 30, 2024 Staff Writer

Online sales on Black Friday in the United States hit a record $7.4 billion this year, with a large number of transactions made from smartphones, according to data released Saturday by Adobe Analytics. The figure was a 19.6 percent increase over last year and the second biggest day of online sales ever, the company said, just below the $7.9 billion consumers spent on last year’s Cyber Monday, which follows Black Friday. This year, 39 percent of online purchases were made from smartphones, a 21 percent increase from last year. “With Christmas now…

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will be moving back to Africa for at least 3 months in 2020, new home?

November 28, 2019 Staff Writer

Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and mobile payments company Square, tweeted his farewell to Africa on Wednesday, but announced that he would return and temporarily move to the continent for at least three months in 2020. JHe uggested that he may move to Africa for at least three months next year. Sad to be leaving the continent…for now. Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!). Not sure where yet, but I’ll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020. Grateful I was able to experience a small…

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Visa acquires new stake in Nigeria’s Interswitch

November 18, 2019September 30, 2024 Staff Writer

Nigerian digital payments firm Interswitch confirmed today it has reached unicorn status after Visa acquired a minority equity stake in the firm. Global payments giant Visa will invest $200 million for 20% stake in Interswitch, electronic payments company, UK’s Sky News reports. The investment places a billion-dollar valuation on 17-year old Interswitch and is a major boon ahead of a proposed initial public offering slated for the London Stock Exchange next year. “The investment makes Interswitch one of the most valuable African fintech businesses with a valuation of $1 billion,”…

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New Disney, 10 million subscribers attraction, should Neflix be worried?

November 14, 2019September 30, 2024 Staff Writer

Disney’s just launched its premium subscription streaming service Disney+ but was not without issues — high demand resulted in content not being accessible for hours on its first day of availability. The company cited higher-than-expected demand as a factor, and now we have a rough estimate of the size of that demand — Disney has revealed that it signed up 10 million users since its Tuesday debut. That’s a lot of subscribers in a very short period. To put it in perspective, Netflix recently reported 158 million subscribers, but that’s…

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Amazon to launch new Amazon CloudFront Edge Location in Kenya

November 12, 2019September 30, 2024

Kenya will be the latest country in Africa after South Africa to have the Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), Amazon CloudFront Edge location launched locally. The launch promises customers a fast and secure Content Delivery Network (CDN) that accelerates the delivery of applications, data, and videos to users worldwide, with high transfer speeds. Amazon Web Services says the Amazon CloudFront is expected to be operational in early 2020 promising up to 50 percent reduction in latency for delivery of content with the new Edge location. The AWS’s global infrastructure network,…

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Facebook debuts new logo with different colors for distinction on its acquisitions Instagram, WhatsApp

November 5, 2019September 30, 2024 Staff Writer

Social media leader, Facebook wants more people to know it owns Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus while still maintaining a distinct identity for its main app. So today it launched a new capitalization and typography format for its company name, using all capital letters and a shifting color scheme that highlights Instagram’s purple gradient and WhatsApp’s green tint. The idea to change the corporate logo to a minimalist rendering of the Facebook name, a move the company said is meant to separate the wider corporation — and its subsidiariesfrom the core…

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Windows 7 end-of-life To New Windows 10

November 1, 2019September 30, 2024

Ivanti, the company that unifies IT to better manage and secure the digital workplace, today announced survey results that capture the pain points and priorities of IT professionals when faced with migrating user devices to Windows 10. Surprisingly, 59% of IT professionals report that they still haven’t migrated all their users to Windows 10, despite the imminent end of regular support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020. As many as 39% will not be completed with their Windows 10 migration projects in time for the January deadline. The study…

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West African New Market on the radar.

October 28, 2019September 30, 2024 Staff Writer

Kenya’s Twiga Foods has raised a total of $30 million from lenders and investors led by Goldman Sachs. Top American investment bank Goldman Sachs is the latest to acquire a stake in Kenyan start-up Twiga Foods following a Sh2.44 billion ( $23.75 million) deal that will help the agro-based firm spread across the country and Africa. The B2B food distribution company financed $6.25 million of the funding in convertible debt and $23.75 million in equity, classified as a Series B round. IFC, TLcom Capital, and Creadev joined Goldman on the…

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PayPal to enter new China Market.

October 23, 2019September 30, 2024 Staff Writer

PayPal will become one of the first international companies to gain a payments license in China, after news emerged that the state-owned People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has greenlighted PayPal’s acquisition of a majority stake in local company GoPay. PayPal, through one of its local China-based subsidiaries called Yinbaobao, will acquire a 70% stake in GoPay, according to a statement on GoPay’s website [in Chinese]. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2019. The company’s full statement on the acquisition is below: The People’s Bank of China has approved…

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