Finland based start-up, HMD Global – the home of Nokia phones has raised additional $100 million from multiple investors to scale business operations and fund the company’s growth in its second year. This round of investment has been led by Geneva based, Ginko Ventures via Alpha Ginko Ltd with participation from DMJ Asia Investment Opportunity Limited and Wonderful Stars Pte Ltd, and a subsidiary of FIH MOBILE LTD. With the latest round of funding, HMD Global’s current market valuation exceeds $1 billion, giving it a unicorn status. HMD Global will be making strategic investments in scaling its fast-growing business operations.…
Author: NBM CORRESPONDENT
The potential for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to become a powerful tool for driving industrialisation, economic diversification and development was highlighted at the start of the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s (ECA) Conference of Ministers in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) last May. The 4-day event aimed to advance the ambitious initiative to form a regional common market, which the ECA believes could boost intra-African trade from its current level of 16% to 52% by 2022. Addressing the gathering, Vera Songwe, executive secretary of the ECA, said that realising the promise of the AfCFTA and its development goals required…
The leading provider of cloud-based business software has announced its expansion into the African market. Freshworks plans to substantially increase its commitment with specific investments in marketing, sales and partner resources to better serve its customers in the region. “Africa,” said Arihant Jain, director for Middle East & Africa, Freshworks “is a very strategic market for Freshworks. “The opening of Africa is an important milestone for us, as it demonstrates our expanding commitment to the region and strengthens our position as a leading software provider. The combination of our industry-leading solutions along with a growing customer base in the region…
The International Trade Centre (ITC) has launched the Kenya chapter of SheTrades in the Commonwealth in a drive to connect more Kenyan women entrepreneurs to markets. A dedicated project of ITC’s global SheTrades initiative, the SheTrades in the Commonwealth project aims to drive increased trade, productivity and competitiveness for women entrepreneurs and women-owned companies to ensure that they play an active role in international trade. Through intensive training and mentoring activities, the goal is to strengthen the capacities of 3,000 women-owned businesses with a view to generate sales worth $38 million (Sh3.8b) by 2020. ITC is the joint agency of…
Over a third of all airline seats in Europe today are on a low cost carrier. In the Americas the figure is 31% and in Asia Pacific it is 26%. Midas Aviation, a team of aviation specialists suggests that the problem is not that Africa is immune to the lure and benefits of the low-cost phenomenon, just that the take up is happening from a lower base level than 10 years ago. This gives hope. Given time, and more steady growth like this, African air travellers will be able to take advantage of the low fare travel that consumers elsewhere do. As we look…
The manufacturing sector has gotten a huge boost in terms of costs as the government decided to reduce the power tariffs from Sh12 to Sh9 per kilowatt-hour. The power tariff reduction is expected to cause a change that will see locally manufactured goods become cheaper. The reduction came after the President chaired a meeting between the private sector and the government at the State House in Nairobi. In doing so the government challenged the sector to work towards increasing its production so that in turn it increases its contribution to the GDP by 15% by the year 2022. In addition,…
By David Wanjala That the country is choking under the weight of corruption is no longer surprising. It has become a national pastime. We are lurching from one scandal to another–from the plunder of billions at the National Youth Service, the theft of Sh63million worth of fertilizer at the National Cereals and Produce Board to the looting at the National Youth Fund, not to mention what is going on at yet another fat government revenue stream, the Kenya Pipeline Corporation. Corruption has long been a torturous and disturbing national narrative with dramatic twists and turns. And it is growing bolder and…
BY LUKE MULUNDA Kenyan financial institutions are facing growing threat from a new trend of fraud perpetuated by customers, according to the PwC 2018 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey (GECS). The survey says consumer-related fraud has become the second most prevalent economic crime in the financial services sector, at 37% incidence rate, after asset misappropriation. PwC defines consumer fraud as economic crimes that occur when a client exploits the governance and control vulnerabilities of a company to commit fraud. The report identifies the crimes as “episodic fraud” which happens when the perpetrators find themselves in circumstances that present an…
When fraud hits, the consequences can be devastating. And that’s why for any organization – be it government or commercial enterprise – preventing is better than cure. Fraud comes in different sheds and companies need to arm themselves with tools and skills of guarding their operations from these fraudsters. Here are ideas from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Don’t get blindsided by your blind spots: If you don’t know it’s there, you don’t look for it. If you don’t look for it, you don’t find it. If you don’t find it, you can’t make the business case to look for it. In this…
BY BENARD AYIEKO The analysis of the ‘big four’ plan in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s final term continues in this edition of the ‘Last Word’. In this month’s Issue, we focus on the manufacturing sector – my penultimate article of the four-part series. The government intends to create jobs for the unemployed youth by scaling-up industrial activities in the manufacturing sector. The main areas of focus being the blue economy, agro-processing, leather and textiles. The fishing industry is also one area whose potential largely remain untapped and suppressed to a double-digit. The sector’s contribution to the GDP has performed dismally over…