Author: Kaluka wanjala

As the new month begins, individuals and businesses running ads on Meta (formerly Facebook) platforms in Kenya should expect tough times ahead. The social media giant has informed those running ads on its platform that it will be implementing the 16% Value Added Tax (VAT).  With this, you should expect to pay 16% more on top of what you will be paying to run ads on the platform. If you typically spend Ksh 10,000 per month on ads, you may end up paying about ksh 11,600 starting from this month. As expected, META will not be pocketing the extra amount…

Hisa, the Kenyan mobile investment platform, is one of the five startups that have made it to the final stage of the MEST Africa challenge. The pan-African pitch competition opened applications in July this year for pre-seed and seed-stage technology start-ups in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, and South Africa  The ultimate prize for the winner will be $50,000. Hisa app lets interested individuals invest in the Kenya and US Stock markets from the comfort of their homes. In addition to allowing users to invest in U.S. stocks and ETFs, Hisa App enables users to get real-time market updates, follow market…

The National Transport and Safety Authority has published a list of the e-Taxi apps licensed to operate in Kenya. This is in accordance with the new regulations issued back in July by the agency and the Ministry of Transport.  The new regulations were to govern the operation of transportation network companies in Kenya including the taxi hailing apps such as Uber and Bolt.  One of the requirement was for these platforms to lower the commission they charge drivers per trip to 18%. This is the maximum percentage they can take but its implementation has been very slow and Uber just…

Over the last several months, there has been some tension between the taxi hailing apps and partner drivers in Kenya. The combination of rising fuel prices, overall rise in cost of living and the high commission some of them charge, the environment has not been fair for the drivers.  Just last week, Uber announced that it will lower the commission it charges drivers from 25% to 18% with immediate effect. This is what the law dictates and is what the company should have done over 3 months ago.  Uber’s decision may be a coincidence or they may have known that…

For the longest time, Twitter’s verified checkmark has been used by businesses and individuals to show that they are who they claim to be. The process of acquiring this checkmark has been hideous but some people who qualify tend to get rejected. Getting the verification badge has been free and this has made the verification process a gamble for anyone trying to get the blue checkmark. There are questionable Twitter accounts with the verification badge which makes the entire thing even more confusing. With Twitter now under Elon Musk, he may change things a bit going forward. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586848033550934016 Twitter currently…

Back in July, the Kenyan Government published new rules for the digital taxi platforms that was to see the services lower the commission they require from drivers to 18%. This was not implemented immediately and that has led to some issues between the platforms and the partner drivers.  Last week, there was a strike by the drivers asking for the implementation of this among other demands. Some of the other demands included doing away with the offers often awarded to riders as a way to get them to take more rides and having a minimum base fare of ksh 300.…

Itel Kenya today has launched the highly ranked itel S18 at Serena Hotel , a compact and stylish smartphone that is their flagship 4G model as opposed to all other existing models. The series succeeds itel S17 from late last year. This year itel received a number global recognitions from industrial media and organizations. First is, among this year’s Top 100 Most Admired Brands in Africa that was announced by African Business magazine, Also itel was recognized by the Titans of Tech Awards as 2022 Best Tech Company of the Decade for our continuous contribution over the decades in bringing…

You may have probably heard about Raspberry PI single board computers if you love hardware technology. Their use is diverse with some people using them to learn programming skills, build hardware projects, do home automation, implement Kubernetes clusters and Edge computing, and even use them in industrial applications. In the last decade, over 50 million Raspberry PI devices were sold worldwide.  The company has announced a new partnership with a Kenyan company, Gearbox Europlacer (https://www.pcb.africa), to produce some of its flagship hardware devices. Gearbox Europlacer, is a world class electronics manufacturing services provider (EMS) based in Industrial Area in Nairobi. …

Earlier today, Safaricom 5G went live in Kenya with availability limited to a few places across the country. The company also shared that those with 5G devices from OPPO, Huawei, Samsung and iPhones (to support Safaricom 5G after an update) will be able to use Safaricom 5G. There are quite a number of other brands left out including Xiaomi, Infinix, Vivo just to name a few. The first conclusion was that these devices cannot connect to Safaricom’s 5G network. I have had an issue with the Xiaomi 11T Pro and thought it is not supported just yet. Well, it looks…

Safaricom has today officially launched its 5G network in Kenya. The service is available in select areas in Kenya. The company said that availability and affordability of 5G devices is still an issue in Kenya.The company said that 4G penetration is also still an issue for a part of the population. The company has asked the Communication Authority of Kenya to use part of the Universal service fund to help bring down the cost of these devices. The Universal service fund has mostly been used to improve access to connectivity services but not for the devices including the handsets used…