Author: Kaluka wanjala

Even as mobile money services become part of daily life for millions in Sub-Saharan Africa, many potential customers face basic barriers to accessing the services on their own mobile phones. Lack of awareness and basic prerequisites, and low appreciation of the benefits are some of the hurdles. More than half of consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa are using mobile money services through an agent, and some 20 percent use mobile money themselves on a mobile phone. However, among the lower socioeconomic groups, four out of 10 people do not meet the basic requirements for independent access – such as a valid…

The Samsung Galaxy J5 and Galaxy J7 were and still are some of the best mid-range smartphones on the market. These smartphones went ahead to sell a good number of units here in Kenya with their superior camera performance and overall better specs that got me to like Samsung again. Samsung is currently working on the 2016 versions of these two phones that we may be seeing in the market very soon. The company has not officially confirmed this but we don’t need official confirmation since they have just been approved by China’s Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center. The Samsung Galaxy…

Huawei is expected to unveil its latest flagship smartphone, the Huawei P9, next week on March 9. We have been hearing a lot about this phone and we now know the company has an event scheduled for next week in Berlin. This is where we will first see the Huawei P9 since it was not showcased at MWC 2016 last month as most people had expected. Huawei even posted a teaser but as usual did not say much about it leaving us to guess what to expect.  Check out the teaser the company shared below. From the photo above, you…

Virtual reality headsets are still in the early days given that not many manufacturers have shown interest in them and not many consumers know about them. Even with this, there are still people out there who are very much interested in these headsets. One proof that VR headsets are gaining popularity comes from the latest sales figures of HTCs latest VR headset the Vive. The company revealed that it managed to sell over 15,000 units of the Vive VR kits in just 10 minutes after it went on sale for preorder. This is very impressive no matter what way you…

One thing that Telegram has always had over WhatsApp is the ability to send documents from one user to the other. This made it more appealing for users who send documents regularly as they see it as more than just another Instant messaging app. WhatsApp knows that there are users who want the feature that allows them to share files with their friends. The company is currently working on this feature which is still in beta mode but when completed will allow people to easily share documents with their contacts. This feature is currently available on WhatsApp version 2.12.489 which…

Airtel Kenya has partnered with Sportpesa, Kenya’s leading sports betting solution to enable bettors in Kenya to do sports betting using Airtel Money FREE of charge. Under the partnership, bettors will now be able to access free deposit of Airtel Money to their betting account in Sportpesa as well as withdrawal free of charge when moving their bet winnings from their Sportpesa betting account to their Airtel Money wallet. To register with SportPesa, Airtel Money users will need to SMS the word ‘Game’ to 79079, after which they will have to accept terms and conditions. This SMS costs Kshs 2. To place a…

Microsoft has been the king of the desktop OS market for decades. Its different Windows variants have always been favorites with most users. At the moment, Windows 7 is the most popular desktop OS version out there with a market share of over 52.34%. This is a slight drop from 52.47% recorded back in January. This version of Windows was released back in 2009 meaning that it has been on the market for over six years. Following Windows 7 is the most recent version, Windows 10, with a market share of 12.82%. This is followed by Windows XP at 11.24%…

Competition in the smartphone market keeps getting tougher by the day and this pushes manufacturers to be innovative. Being innovative is what smartphone manufacturers are hoping will separate them from the rest of the players. One company that seems to be bringing new products and features to the market is Vivo. The company has just unveiled the Vivo Xplay 5 which stands out as being the world’s first smartphone with 6GB of RAM. Keep in mind that there are a good number of laptop and computers out there with 4GB of RAM or less. The Vivo Xplay 5 was announced…

If you have an active Safaricom line, you may have seen the notification that tells you how much you have spent(airtime) and that you should spend ‘X’ amount of money to get Storo bonus airtime. This service has been available to Safaricom users from last October and can be very annoying to some users. According to Safaricom, you will be opted into the service automatically if you are on Uwezo and Baraka tariffs and have been on Safaricom for at least three months. The service is available to prepay customers only. For those prepay customers who are annoyed with the…

Thousands of retailers in Kenya are now selling online having listed their products on different e-commerce websites, some of the retailers have physical stores and are looking to bridge the gap between offline and online sales while others are selling entirely from home. An online marketplace is a platform that allows retailers to list their products on an e-commerce website, update stock, monitor sales as well as pending, shipped and cancelled orders on their own. The seller can choose to retain the products and deliver to the e-commerce company once an order is placed in what is referred to as…