Pan-African payments technology company Cellulant is in the news again, this time thanks to a partnership with B2C e-commerce platform Copia focused on the Kenyan market.

Copia Global describes itself as the only B2C e-commerce platform providing e-commerce solutions for 800 million middle-to-low-income African consumers.

Remittance inflows to Kenya have increased tenfold in the last 15 years, reaching an all-time high of US$3.72 million dollars in 2021, according to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). For many Kenyans, digital payments made by diasporans to rural families provide a financial lifeline to millions of households. Diasporans and people living in urban areas can use Copia’s online platform to pay for goods and have them delivered to friends and family back home.

Copia combines mobile technology, over 40,000 digitally enabled local agents, and an innovative last-mile logistics system to provide a broad product offering and efficient, reliable delivery to rural consumers. The streamlined process enables customers to simply provide the phone number of a friend or family member at checkout and Copia will do the rest, including locating the recipient, identifying the nearest delivery centre agent, and delivering the goods.

This partnership enables Copia’s diaspora and urban customers to conveniently initiate transactions and purchases for their loved ones in rural areas in Kenya using the Cellulant network. This, the partners say, provides greater choice, affordability, and convenience for both urban and rural shoppers when shopping for everyday items.

This agreement may not only be applicable to Kenya, it seems. Tim Steel, Chief Executive Officer, Copia Global, says: “This will enable us to provide diaspora and urban customers with alternative and convenient payment options when they shop on Copia’s platform for friends and family across Kenya and Uganda.”

Global digital infrastructure firm DigitalBridge Group has announced the acquisition of an ownership stake in AIMS Group from Malaysian telecoms firm TIME dotcom and the formation of an edge data centre platform focused on the high-growth markets of the Southeast Asia region.

AIMS is a leading operator of highly connected ecosystem-centric data centres based in Malaysia. Its Kuala Lumpur flagship Menara AIMS facility anchors the Malaysia Internet Exchange.

AIMS’ facilities provide highly inter-connected environments to a diverse customer base, comprising domestic and international telecommunications carriers, major enterprises, hyperscalers and content distribution networks. AIMS also operates a state-of-the-art purpose-built data centre campus in Cyberjaya and a new facility in downtown Bangkok.

The stake has been sold for about 2 billion ringgit (US$436.7 million). Proceeds from the stake sales will be partly used by TIME to pay a special dividend of up to 1 billion ringgit to its shareholders. The balance will be reinvested into TIME. The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close in 2023.

Reuters points out that the deal, announced at a time of political upheaval in Malaysia, underscores booming demand for infrastructure assets such as data centres in Southeast Asia as investors are lured by their stable, long-term returns.

Describing TIME as having a long heritage of building connectivity-linked businesses across Southeast Asia, Justin Chang, Managing Director and Head of Asia for DigitalBridge, has been quoted as saying: “AIMS is a leading operator in the region poised for significant growth, with a strong management team, a robust development pipeline and considerable expansion capacity.”

VIEWPOINT

Globally, enterprises are managing businesses in a highly challenging world with increased volatility, uncertainty and complexity. As a result, enterprises need to leverage the latest technologies to enhance their capabilities to address the new-age market challenges.

In this regard, 5G, with its ability to provide ultra-high-speed and extremely low latency, is helping businesses unlock new capabilities to maximize the available market opportunities. However, since 5G is different from previous communications standards and enables several new and innovative use cases it demands, the service providers must transform their own operations and processes to be able to provide relevant 5G-powered use cases to enterprises.

This is all the more crucial as 5G allows telcos to offer new use cases to enterprises, thus opening new revenue streams for them. The 5G enterprise market size was valued at $1,682 million in 2020 and is projected to reach $16,846 Million by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 33.9% from 2021 to 2028, according to Valuates Research.

Transforming from CSP into a Cognitive Tech-co 

Thailand’s AIS, the country’s leading digital service provider, is moving away from being a traditional Communications Service Provider (CSP) and transforming itself into a Cognitive Tech-Co, so it is able to leverage technologies like data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide improved and truly differentiated service and solutions to its enterprise customers.

“This will help us to drive towards the mission that we want to achieve in terms of the way how we can accelerate the digital transformation for Thailand businesses,” says Tanapong Ittisakulchai, Chief Enterprise Business Officer at AIS, who recently attended The 2nd Business Executives Roundtable at the 13th Global Mobile Broadband Forum (MBBF), and also joined Win Win Live in Bangkok for a dialogue on Thailand’s digital transformation.

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AIS is Thailand’s biggest service provider and was the first operator to launch 5G in 2020. Now it boasts of around 45 million subscribers, more than 70% of which are active data users. AIS’ 5G covers more than 80% of the country’s population.

AIS believes that 5G also allows it to contribute to the Government’s Thailand 4.0 vision, which was launched recently. The Thailand 4.0 policy is designed to promote and support innovation, creativity, research and development, higher technologies and green technologies.

“As a trusted, smart digital partner, serving Thai organizations to accelerate their digital transformation with a comprehensive suite of digital technology and delivering services with trusted professionals,” says Tanapong Ittisakulchai. The service provider is aiding the digital transformation of Thai enterprises in different verticals like manufacturing, healthcare and energy.

“Our key strategy is to focus on investment, you know, in the intelligence networks, building 5G ecosystem partners with the cloud convergence and AI. You know, we can provide a better data-driven business solution for the customers and more importantly, we partner and build a platform to focus on the vertical industries as well,” explains Tanapong Ittisakulchai.

In this context, the importance of collaboration in building an ecosystem can hardly be exaggerated. However, service providers typically work in silos. As a result, their processes are traditionally not designed to collaborate with other players. To address this problem, AIS is building a “partnership framework that integrates the technology side with the customers, which is more of a vertical solution requirement and then co-creates a sustainable business model.”

Further, AIS is also enabling the digital transformation experience of its enterprise customers by leveraging its own experience. It provides AIS with a unique perspective on the problems enterprises face in digitally transforming their operations.

“At the same time, we learn from the customers as well as about their vertical industries, their requirements, and their challenges, and co-create the solution which is more sustained and builds the proper sustainable solution for the future,” says Tanapong Ittisakulchai. This way, AIS is better able to address the changing requirement of enterprises.

AIS is at the forefront of transforming its operations and has set an example for other service providers to reimagine their processes to better serve the changing needs of the enterprise segment.

By Andy Burrell, Head of Portfolio Marketing, CNS Business Applications, Nokia

The term observability is gaining recognition in the telecoms industry. Experts predict it to cross the chasm and become a mainstream telecom topic in the near future – and it’s all because of the cloud. … [visit site to read more]

Amazon penned an agreement to develop four solar panel projects in Indonesia with state-owned energy company Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN, AKA Pesero), from which it will acquire 210 megawatts of renewable energy capacity. 

Data and Storage ASEAN reported the new renewable energy projects are located in Bali and Java on the Java-Madura-Bali grid.

“The Indonesian government is committed to reducing greenhouse emissions to achieve net zero goals by 2060,” said Darmawan Prasodjo, president director of PLN (Persero).

“PLN is fully committed to supporting the government’s program to enable clean energy and is accelerating this with a clear roadmap to achieve that mission. This collaboration between the private and public sectors is a key strategy to ensuring a future of clean and affordable energy.”
 
“PLN will build four new utility-scale power generation projects included in the 2021 – 2030 Electricity Supply Business Plan (RUPTL), which is the greenest RUPTL we have had in national history with the addition of 20.9 gigawatts of renewable energy power plants. With this agreement we are supporting Amazon on its path to 100% renewable energy, and hope this initiative will inspire future collaborations with other aspiring environmentally-conscious multinational corporations,” Darmawan added.

“We are delighted to announce our first renewable energy projects in Indonesia in collaboration with PLN, putting Amazon on a path towards 100% renewable energy,” said Amazon Web Services managing director of data centre planning and Delivery for Asia-Pacific, Japan and China, Carly Wishart.

“PLN and Amazon teams have worked together to unlock a new way for corporates to procure renewable energy in the country. Our renewable energy projects will supply energy for Amazon’s operations in Indonesia and help advance Amazon’s goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions across its business by 2040. We look forward to this continued collaboration with PLN to enable more renewable energy projects in Indonesia.”