Africa

Orange to Bring Free Wikipedia Access to Cell Users in Africa and Middle East

Ina Fried in Mobile on January 24 at 10:44 am PT

Over the course of 2012, the carrier will bring the service to 20 countries in the region it covers.

BlackBerry Outage Hits Europe, Middle East, Africa

John Paczkowski in Mobile on October 10, 2011 at 8:05 am PT

Another black eye for the BlackBerry.

Banking Via a Cellphone and a Shack

Peter Wonacott, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on June 13, 2011 at 5:30 am PT

Mavis Nonkongozelo walks up to the Five Sisters convenience store here, then pulls a mobile phone from her bag and a few rands from her brassiere. She is ready to bank. With a few taps on her cellphone, the 34-year old preschool teacher connects to a nascent mobile-banking network aimed at Africa’s new consumers.

Q&A: Vinton Cerf on the Internet's Future

Yun-Hee Kim, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 25, 2011 at 9:19 am PT

Vinton Cerf is widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of the Internet and currently holds the title of “chief Internet evangelist” at search giant Google Inc. In Hong Kong for an industry conference, Mr. Cerf spoke with The Wall Street Journal about trends in the Internet space, the implications of the temporary shut down of the Internet in Egypt earlier this month and censorship in China.

News Byte

MasterCard Appoints New Head of Mobile Payments

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on January 24, 2011 at 4:01 pm PT

MasterCard Worldwide has appointed Mung-Ki Woo to the position of Group Executive of Mobile. Woo will be responsible for commercializing and developing mobile payments for MasterCard around the world. Most recently, Woo was VP of Electronic Payments & Transactions at France Telecom, where he led the “Orange Money” mobile payment program, which was commercially available in several African countries, and deployed Orange’s mobile contactless payment services in Europe. Before that, he was CTO of a French interbank organization that specialized in electronic money systems.

Telecom Giants Battle for Kenya

Sarah Childress, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on January 14, 2011 at 12:05 am PT

Mobile-phone companies across Africa are drawing battle lines to capture the rising middle-class consumer. But in Kenya, the war already is well under way, stocked with ammunition from abroad.

Sales of Unbranded Chinese Phones Surge

Gustav Sandstrom, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on November 10, 2010 at 2:02 pm PT

Sales of low-cost Chinese cellphones helped fuel a global surge in handset shipments in the third quarter, research firm Gartner said, squeezing market leader Nokia Corp. at a time it facing pressure from Apple Inc.’s iPhone and other smartphones.

News Byte

A Wireless World: Subscriptions Set to Pass Five Billion

Voices in News on September 17, 2010 at 10:23 am PT

Global wireless subscriptions will breeze past another large-round-number milestone this month, according to research outfit iSuppli: An installed base of five billion devices. That’s the equivalent of almost three-quarters of the world’s population, but the regional penetration varies widely, from 50 percent across Africa and the Middle East to 157 percent in Western Europe, where many people have multiple phones and subscriptions.

Nike’s Not-So-Secret World Cup Ads Go Viral Before They Launch

Peter Kafka in Media on May 21, 2010 at 4:53 am PT

The World Cup starts next month. And Nike’s ad blitz starts tomorrow. On the Web, though, the ads are already a hit.

Facebook Lands Former Bebo CEO (And ex-Googler) Joanna Shields

Peter Kafka in Media on April 1, 2010 at 2:06 am PT

Facebook is beefing up its European sales team with a big name in social networking circles: It is adding former Bebo CEO Joanna Shields, who will runs sales and business development in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.