Author: Kaluka wanjala

Yesterday at IFA 2016, Huawei introduced two new smartphones targeting the mid-range market segment. These smartphones are the Huawei Nova and Nova Plus and introduce a new lineup from the company. Huawei has had a successful flagship lineup and now it wants to venture into the mid-range segment. If the pricing is right, I do not see the company struggle to convince users to buy its products. “Huawei recognizes that dynamic consumers demand a device that keeps up with their fast-paced lifestyle,” said Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group. “Designed to bring new experiences to life with its…

Snapchat is one of the fastest rising social networking sites and Facebook has noticed this. At one point, Facebook wanted to acquire Snapchat but the deal did not go through in the end. Yesterday, Facebook added a new feature that it borrows heavily from Snapchat. This feature allows Facebook Messenger users to instantly share live video with their friends. The company is calling this feature Instant Video and works almost exactly as Snapchat’s video messaging. This new feature comes into play just a few weeks after another Facebook owned property, Instagram, rolled out Stories, a feature that borrows a lot…

Huawei recorded over 250,000 smartphone sales in Kenya between January and June this year. The company is looking to ship in a similar number of smartphones by the end of the year. According to Huawei’s Sales Director, most of the sales were realized from smartphones ranging between Kshs8,000 and Kshs20,000. The company has moved to strengthen its position in the youth market segment by launching four additional devices namely Huawei Y311, Y511, Y611, and GR5mini into the local market. The four new devices will retail between Kshs 7,999 to Kshs 25,000. Speaking at the launch Huawei Mobile Kenya Sales Director…

Sony Mobile has today unveiled two new smartphones, the Xperia XZ and Xperia X Compact. The two devices were announced earlier today at IFA 2016 and are extra additions to the growing Xperia X amily. The Sony Xperia XZ is supposed to replace the Xperia X Performance and is the premium if the two. The Xperia XZ comes with a 5.2-inch display with a 1080p resolution. Powering it is the Snapdragon 820 processor that is paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage space that can be expanded up to 200GB using a microSD card. For the camera,…

Huawei Mobile has today expanded its smartphone lineup in Kenya with the addition of four new devices. These four devices are the Y311, Y511, Y611 and GR5 mini that the company will use to target the youth who it says are untapped. Speaking of the launch Mark Hemaobin, the General Manager, Huawei Mobile Kenya described the youth market as untapped with a great potential for Huawei to continue positioning various products and services to this target group. The company’s strategy is focused on embedding powerful features in the mid-range devices at an affordable price to accommodate consumers’ lifestyle for instance…

Corning is one of the key players in the smartphone market even though many people may not know about it. The company makes Gorilla Glass that is used by many manufacturers to protect the screens of their devices from scratch and impacts. Corning has dominated the smartphone markets and the company wants to do the same in the wearables market. The company has announced a new line of its scratch resistant glass specifically made for wearables and specifically smartwatches and fitness bands. This new variant is dubbed Gorilla Glass SR+ and the first wearable to spot it is the Samsung…

Samsung has finally unveiled its third smartwatch, the Gear S3, ending months of speculations and rumors about what the company was planning to do.  This smartwatch was unveiled yesterday at an event the company had before IFA 2016 officially starts. We were expecting three variants of the Gear S3 but it looks like Samsung has decided to stick to only two at the moment. These two variants are the Gear S3 Classic and the Gear S3 Frontier. The Gear S3 classic is made for normal users while the Gear S3 frontier is made for those who live an active lifestyle.…

Snapchat is one of the fastest growing social networking sites out there but the company does not have dynamic ads to offer businesses the exposure they need. The company is not offering advertisers personalized ads that they can easily get from other sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Snapchat knows it needs to offer advertisers more options and that is why it is working to ensure it can offer targeted ads very soon. According to eMarketer, Snapchat’s director of revenue operations has revealed that the company is looking for ways that it can implement behavioral targeting advertising. The company plans…

While many companies are embracing the move to the Cloud, nearly half are struggling, wrestling with increases in Cloud integration costs and data silos according to a new study sponsored by Oracle. A key reason to this, according to Oracle’s Putting Cultural Transformation at the Heart of Cloud Success report, is the fact that more than 60% of a company’s overall IT spend is being driven by individual business units versus traditional IT departments, making it difficult for companies to fully benefit from the Cloud services they are subscribing to. Another significant part of the problem is that most organizations…

Huawei is currently working on two smartphones that it plans to release tomorrow at its IFA event. IFA 2016 officially starts in two days (on September 2) but Huawei wants to launch these two devices before that. We had expected to see the Huawei Mate 9 at the event but an executive inside Huawei said that the company is using the event to introduce a new mid-range series and that the Mate 9 will not be there. For those waiting for the Mate 9, the company is yet to confirm when it will be unveiled, my guess at this point…