👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – A Quick Pass

Streaming

Across Africa, DStv subscription fees are increasing faster than several exchange rates. In April 2023, MultiChoice increased fees for its DStv and GOtv bouquets by 4.8% across several countries. By November 2023, it announced another 18% price hike in Nigeria, and its southern Africa countries. According to the company, the hikes were inescapable as the cost of its business operations kept rising with inflation. 

Three price hikes in one year: In the early hours of April 24, Multichoice announced a 25% increment to its customers, which was scheduled to take effect from today, May 1.

But Nigeria has had enough of the hikes: The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), the agency saddled with the function of promoting fair, efficient and competitive markets in Nigeria, and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has started investigating the reason for the hike in price. 

This investigation comes after a petitioner sued MultiChoice for the price hikes and sought an injunction barring the company from increasing its prices. 

A three-member Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal (CCPT), which heard the petition, delivered a ruling on Monday restraining MultiChoice from increasing its tariffs and cost of products and services scheduled to begin on May 1. The tribunal also ordered that the injunction remain in effect until a final decision is made on the case. All parties in the lawsuit are required to appear in court on May 7th, 2024 at 10:00 am to discuss the case further.

Nigerians react: The increment riled Nigerians up across social media with some netizens advising others to abandon the pay TV. An X user, TheMahleek, tweeted, “DSTV premium subscription don pass a minimum wage. Na to dey watch EPL from WhatsApp status.” Another X user, OlamideOfficial said, “Someone needs to explain to me like a 2-year-old why DSTV keeps increasing their subscription packages”.

MultiChoice has its reasons: In a four-page letter submitted to the FCCPC, MultiChoice may have answered OlamideOfficial’s question, detailing the reasons for the price hikes in their cable services. Adamu Abdullahi, acting executive vice chairman of FCCPC revealed in an interview with Channels Television that the company cited the cost of electricity, generator operations and the cost of dollars for some spare parts are some of the reasons for the price increase. 

He continued in the interview saying the FCCPC suspects the company may be abusing their market position by engaging in unfair practices. Abdullahi explained that limited consumer choice in the market allows this company to potentially act with impunity. “If the FCCPC confirms these suspicions, they will take legal action as mandated by their authority,” he said.

The whole country will now wait for the tribunal’s final judgement to see if the hike will be effected. 

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Telecoms

KYC—short for know your customer—regulation has been a major taking point amongst Nigerian fintech. Neobanks across the country have been heavily criticised for having lax KYC measures. Former regulation by the CBN allowed people to register with neobanks without providing any form of identification—NIN and BVN. Bad actors soon began exploring this loophole to transfer fraud proceeds into such accounts.

The CBN soon caught up with this trick and revised its regulation to only allow for the opening of accounts linked with proper identifications. Users have had to adjust to this transition as the once easy-to-open neobanks now require stringent account opening processes. This, in turn, has affected the growth and user count of fintechs and MTN’s fintech arm—MTN MoMo—was not left out.

The news: In its latest financial report, the telecom stated that “KYC requirements and the delays in CBN approvals for some of our commercial initiatives impacted the growth of active wallets.”

MTN’s fintech arm closed the first quarter with 4.8 million active wallet users, reflecting a decrease of 566,000 compared to the previous quarter. Similarly, the number of MoMo agents declined by 94,000. It was not all gloom as the fintech added over 75,000 new merchants in Q1, pushing the total number of merchants within its ecosystem to more than 400,000.

Zoom out: MTN’s financials also revealed that the company made more money via data revenue than it did with voice. Data revenue grew by more than 50%, while voice revenues grew by 14.9%. The telecom made ₦318.9 billion ($228 million) and ₦349.5 billion ($251 million) on voice and data respectively.

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Companies

Twiga gets a breath of fresh air!

Last year, the e-commerce startup suffered bouts of trouble: it delayed payments to suppliers and staff, had multiple rounds of layoffs and was also involved in a legal tussle with Incentro Africa over a $450,000 cloud bill. While the cloud bill payment was settled out of court, Twiga’s tumultuous year culminated with the resignation of its CEO, Peter Njonjo, which many believed was forced out by investors. Njonjo also relinquished his position on the Twiga’s board.

Four months after Njonjo’s resignation, Twiga seems to be finding its rhythm. 

A herculean task: Yesterday, TechCabal reported that Twiga Foods hired Jumia Kenya’s Charles Ballard as its new CEO. Ballard, a former Jumia employee is now charged with bringing new hopes to the startup which has had a bad year behind it.

Who is Ballard? Ballard rose through the ranks in Jumia to become the chief operating officer after joining the e-commerce giant as head of performance and planning in 2019. Ballard brings a wealth of experience of 15 years in e-commerce, retail, and financial services.

Spin up a sales force with dozens – even hundreds – of Virtual Terminal accounts in seconds, without the headache of managing physical hardware. Learn more → 

Acquisitions

BuuPass, a Kenyan-based travel booking platform, has acquired its competitor, QuickBus a bus ticketing platform which has operations in Nigeria and South Africa. 

Why? Well, BuuPass says it wants to strengthen its presence in Africa. This acquisition will grant the company access to two major new markets: Nigeria and South Africa.

QuickBus, which rasied over $1 million in a 2020 seed round, will help BuuPass gain access to existing partnerships with major payment platforms like Vodacom’s VodaPay in South Africa, making the booking process smoother for users. The acquisition is expected to drive BuuPass’ monthly active users to 650,000. 

Under BuuPass’s ownership, QuickBus is expected to expand its offerings with interesting features like the Cash Advance. The integration process will also involve adding new travel options, including train and flight bookings, which were lacking in BuuPass’s Kenyan market. 

“Starting today, BuuPass users can access international routes across 16 African countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Malawi, Nigeria, and Ghana. Major routes, such as Johannesburg to Cape Town and Durban to Capetown, can be found on the platform today, with more to be added by the end of Q2,” BuuPass told TechCabal. 

GITEX Africa returns a second time on May 29–31, 2024, to Marrakech, Morocco, discussing ways to accelerate the continent’s digital health revolution. GITEX is the continent’s largest all-inclusive tech event renowned for uniting the brightest minds in the technology industry. 

Grab your tickets here.

Crypto Tracker

Source:

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$60,067	– 5.32%	– 14.47%
Ether	$2,991	– 5.68%	– 16.88%
Ethena	$0.79	– 11.52%	+ 15.34%
Solana	$125.85	– 7.27%	– 37.40%

* Data as of 06:25 AM WAT, May 1, 2024.

Opportunities

• The fourth edition of Pitch2Win is open for applications. Pitch2Win aims to connect visionary founders with potential investors, fostering growth, collaboration, and investment opportunities. The 3 Finalists will win a prize pot of $20,000. They will also receive an all-expense paid trip to the IVS2024 Kyoto Event, Japan’s largest startup conference. Apply by May 5, 2024.
• Applications are now open for the DAAD Leadership for Africa Master’s Scholarship Programme. The programme aims to support the academic qualification and advancement of young refugees and national scholars from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda at higher education institutions in Germany. Applicants will get a chance to learn a German language course for 6 months before study begins, and a Tuition-free M.A. or M.Sc. degree programme at a public or state-recognized university in Germany starting September/October 2025.Apply by June 7, 2024.

Here’s what you should be looking at

• Read TechCabal’s Quarterly Impact Report – Q1 2024
• Uzoma Dozie is betting on banking, not fintech
• National Security Adviser urges media managers to counter social media disinformation in Nigeria

Written by: Faith Omoniyi & Towobola Bamgbose

Edited by: Timi Odueso

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