Devices & Platforms

Antel, the leading mobile operator in Uruguay, is working with VMware, a provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, for a use case-driven trial using the VMware Telco Cloud Platform to support a proof of concept (PoC).

India seems to have taken the self-sufficiency theme to another level with a home-grown mobile operating system developed at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. It’s called BharOS (Bhar is short for Bharat, or India).

Turkish operator Turkcell has upgraded to the Ericsson Mediation platform, supporting its ongoing business support systems (BSS) evolution.

Smartphone shipments in Latin America and the Caribbean dropped 13% year-on-year in Q3 2022, with the decline attributed to slowing consumer demand, resulting in declines and stagnation for most top brands. 

For evidence of how far inter-African digital finance has come in recent years you probably need look no further than the African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP), which went live on cross-border trading at the end of last week.

Iran-focused technology group ASL19 has partnered with civil liberties NGO United for Iran to launch Meidoon, a platform that provides open and accessible data on trending Persian-language content on Telegram.

The Indonesian smartphone market recorded a 12.4% year-on-year decline in shipments to 8.1 million units in Q3, as the market constricted due to inflation and rising fuel costs.

Indian smartphone manufacturer Lava International held negotiations with China-based Huaqin technology, to advance plans in creating a manufacturing venture in India, reported Bloomberg.

Apple was again fined for selling iPhones without chargers in Brazil, this time by the Sao Paulo state court to the tune of BRL100 million (US$19m), reported Reuters.

Smartphone shipments for Latin America declined 2.5% year-on-year to 32.2 million units in Q2 but proved to be a bright spot as the global smartphone market collectively dropped 9%.

It may not come as a major surprise, but independent analyst company Canalys has now supplied the figures to back up the expected news that smartphone sales are falling in Southeast Asia.

In its continuing drive to boost local industry, it now seems that India is taking aim at low-priced smartphones from China of the sort sold in large quantities in the country by companies like Xiaomi.

The Chinese government warned of lowered confidence in conducting business in India after smartphone maker Vivo became the latest to be hit with “frequent investigations” by Indian authorities on Chinese businesses.

Pan-African e-commerce platform Jumia has announced a partnership with Chinese smartphone manufacturer Realme. The joint aim is to roll out new devices at a time when Africa’s smartphone market is enjoying high growth; this in turn will benefit e-commerce.

Approved Apple repair centres in Russia are reportedly struggling to find legit parts to carry out repairs for devices after the nation was sanctioned by a raft of nations after beginning the invasion of Ukraine.

Global payments technology company Mastercard and Ecobank Group, a leading independent pan-African banking group, are to partner to digitize agricultural value chains in Africa.

Hayo Telecom, a Senegalese mobile network operator, has chosen Telesmart.io, a provider of global number and messaging services, to provide it with a fully API-enabled number and messaging platform.

Apple has reportedly shifted even more to production outside of its main manufacturing hub of China, as the country continues its strict lockdown measures. 

The wearable market in India recorded double-digit growth in Q1 2022 as a result of new launches, discounts and aggressive marketing by vendors.

Apple has made India the latest location for the manufacturing of its flagship iPhone 13 as the company aims to shift its manufacturing reliance away from China, reported Reuters.  

Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel is exploring the possibility of punishing vendors of grey market devices with fines up to BRL50 million (US$10.5m) per infraction.

The shipments of mobile phones to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region grew 8.3% quarter on quarter (QoQ) in Q4 2021 to a total 6.10 million units, said a report.

Asteria Aerospace, an India-based drone manufacturer and solution provider and a subsidiary of Jio Platforms Ltd, has launched an end-to-end drone operations platform.

Facebook and WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms has been referred to a tribunal by South Africa’s competition watchdog over allegations that it has exploited its market dominance.

As would-be rival Safaricom Ethiopia gets ready to start operations, Ethiopian incumbent operator Ethio Telecom is expanding the scope of its mobile money service telebirr. According to the Ethiopian Herald news service the latest offering is a drivers' traffic penalty payment platform.

Chinese consumer electronics and mobile communications company Oppo has set up what it calls a Power and Performance Lab at at its Hyderabad R&D centre in India as part of what are described as plans to building an entire product development ecosystem from India.

Beijing 2022’s Winter Olympic Games experience was improved with the use of Prevail’s cutting-edge digitalized ticketing. Spectators were able to access the stadiums in 1.5 seconds, with the digital ticketing system using Prevail’s PDA to verify ticket QR codes.

STL an integrator of digital networks with a strong presence in India, Italy, the UK, the US, China, and Brazil, has announced the launch of Firebird, a line of O-RAN-based macro radios for dense, wide area 5G coverage at  MWC 2022.

Open source solutions provider Red Hat has announced at Mobile World Congress 2022 that Turkish integrated telecommunications operator Turk Telekom has deployed Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading Kubernetes platform, for use across its business to develop and scale cloud-native applications from core to edge for faster innovation.

Hungary’s telecommunications regulator the National Media and Communications Authority (NMHH) launched a mobile device replacement programme to encourage consumers to trade in 2G and 3G phones for 4G devices, before planned network shutdowns.