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In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Happy pre-TGIF. This week, Substack made an interesting move. The newsletter platform partnered with Pangram, an AI-writing detection software, to enable users to scan articles and comments to see how much estimated content was written by AI. I still don’t know how I feel about it. It’s borderline AI-shaming. The same tools that the tech bros of the world—running on high caffeine—built to increase productivity are now being treated like contraband. And I’m actually curious to see what use this serves. If this is about research on AI dependence, I think there’s an obvious endline, and we’ll discover that a lot of Substack authors use AI for framing and getting brilliant arguments across. No harm in that. But tell me, are you excited at the prospect of counting Substack posts that use AI? Full disclosure: at least this opening lede is 100% human-written. Even Pangram says so. —Emmanuel Get smarter about Francophone Africa with our newsletter, Francophone Weekly—the startups, tech policies, and institutions building the pipelines for ecosystem growth. Subscribe Pepkor creates new business: FintechCo Kenyan phones must now come with one-year warranty M-KOPA crosses 10 million user mark Dolphin Telecoms’ cross-border MVNO play World Wide Web 3 Events companies Pepkor merges two businesses to create FintechCo, its new super financial rail Image Source: Tenor Walk into a spaza shop almost anywhere in South Africa and chances are you’ll find a Flash terminal selling airtime, electricity tokens, or betting vouchers. If the stars align, you could also find a Shop2Shop device helping the same merchant accept card payments, deposit cash, or manage stock. Pepkor, the South African retailer behind brands such as PEP and Ackermans, wants those two businesses to become one. On Wednesday, Pepkor announced it will merge its fintech subsidiary, Flash, with merchant platform Shop2Shop in a deal that values the combined business at R21.3 billion ($1.3 billion). Pepkor will inject R1.57 billion ($95 million) in cash and fold Flash, valued at R10.6 billion ($640 million), into the combined business, giving it a 57.1% controlling stake in the new company. The retailer said the merged entity will be called “FintechCo.” What’s changing? Flash built one of South Africa’s largest value-added services (VAS) networks, allowing merchants to sell products like airtime, data bundles, prepaid electricity, gaming vouchers, and bill payments. Shop2Shop tackles a different problem: helping the same merchants accept digital payments, manage cash, order inventory, and access other business services. Both businesses process more than R200 billion ($12 billion) in annual transaction value across the formal and informal economy. State of play: The deal is another step in Pepkor’s plan to become more than a discount retailer. While clothing and household goods remain its biggest business, financial services have become an important growth engine for the South African retailer. In the first half of its 2026 financial year, Pepkor’s “Financial Services” business generated R3.0 billion ($182 million) in revenue, up 41.6% year-on-year. Flash now sits under Pepkor’s Informal Market Platform, where transaction volumes grew 20.3% to R34.7 billion ($2.1 billion). Connectivity is another pillar of Pepkor’s ecosystem strategy. By September 2024, the retailer had sold 11.5 million handsets, creating more opportunities to cross-sell lending, insurance, airtime, and other financial services to customers already in its network. Between the lines: This is ultimately a merchant acquisition play. South Africa’s informal retail economy, made up of hundreds of thousands of spaza shops and independent traders, still handles large volumes of cash despite steady growth in digital payments. Flash already reaches many of those merchants through prepaid products, while Shop2Shop helps them digitise everyday operations. Combining both gives Pepkor a stronger foothold in the businesses that millions of South Africans rely on daily. Zoom out: Pepkor isn’t hiding the endgame. The retailer says it plans to separately list FintechCo, the combined fintech business, in the medium term—likely on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)—which will create a standalone payments company while keeping control through its majority stake. If that happens, South Africa could soon have another publicly listed fintech, built not around affluent bank customers, but around the small merchants who power the country’s informal economy. Getting paid in cedis just got easier for African businesses operating in Ghana. Fincra now issues dedicated GHS virtual accounts to enable businesses to collect payments. See how Fincra GHS virtual accounts work. policy Kenya just made it harder for smartphone vendors to say “sorry, no warranty” Image Source: Tenor Bought a phone in January. It stopped charging in March. You walked back into the shop, receipt in hand, only to hear the dreaded words: “Warranty imeisha.” That conversation is about to get much shorter in Kenya. What happened? From now on, every mobile phone, laptop, tablet, and several other communications devices sold in Kenya must come with at least a one-year warranty and a return policy. The new rules from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), the country’s telecom regulator, also require sellers to repair faulty devices during that period or risk penalties starting at KES 500,000 ($3,900) or 0.2% of annual turnover, whichever is higher. Explain like I’m new here: Until now, your warranty often depended on where you bought the phone. Walk into an official Samsung or Apple store, and you’d likely get a manufacturer’s warranty. Buy the same phone from a smaller electronics shop or an online seller, and you might only get a 30- or 90-day shop warranty, especially if it was imported through unofficial channels or refurbished. The new rules level that playing field. Whether the phone is brand new or refurbished, sellers are now responsible for standing behind what they sell for at least 12 months. Refurbished devices must also be clearly labelled as refurbished, online sellers must provide a physical address customers can visit, and every receipt must include the device’s serial number and warranty details. But here’s the interesting part: Beyond providing warranties, Kenya is tightening control over its electronics market. On Tuesday, the regulator introduced
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M-KOPA, the pan-African asset-financing startup, says it now serves 10 million customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa, six years after crossing the one million-customer mark. The company said on Wednesday that it now onboards about 10,000 customers daily as it scales its lending business beyond its Kenyan roots. The milestone builds on M-KOPA’s strong run over the past year. In October 2025, the company reported its first-ever annual profit alongside a 66% jump in revenue. One month later, its Kenyan subsidiary crossed $1.6 billion in credit given to its customers, underscoring growing demand for credit products targeting underserved consumers. “Every Day Earners are why we do this,” M-KOPA chief finance officer (CFO) Faraimose Kutadzaushe said in a statement. “From our very first customer to this year’s ten millionth, this is proof that a model built for Africa’s Every Day Earners doesn’t just work, it scales and endures. It’s a proud moment for our team, and we’re already looking to the next 10 million.” The milestones reflect how M-KOPA’s business has evolved since expanding into smartphone financing in 2020. Rather than simply selling financed devices, the company now uses smartphones as a gateway to a suite of financial services for customers largely excluded from formal banking, including device protection. Nigeria has emerged as a key driver of that strategy. Since entering the market in 2019, M-KOPA has disbursed more than ₦231 billion ($170 million) in credit to over one million customers. The country also became the fastest market in the company’s history to reach the one million-customer milestone. M-KOPA operates in a competitive asset-financing market where companies including Sun King, d.light, and EasyBuy use smartphones and consumer electronics to extend credit to first-time borrowers. To support its expansion, the company noted that it built its own distribution network of more than 40,000 sales agents across its five markets. M-KOPA said it has maintained average annual revenue growth of 50% since 2020 while processing more than two million customer repayments every day. “Every Day Earners have always been creditworthy. What they needed was credit built around how they really make a living, not a payslip. Informal has never meant unviable,” said Jesse Moore, co-Founder and chief executive of M-KOPA. “10 million customers on, that’s no longer a belief. It’s proven.” True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Table of contents Galaxy Z Fold8 Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra Galaxy Z Flip8 Galaxy Watch9 Galaxy Watch Ultra2 Galaxy Glasses One UI 9 Flex Titanium Display Galaxy Card Samsung just wrapped up its Galaxy Unpacked event in London. You get new foldable phones, new watches, new software, and a first look at Samsung’s smart glasses. This article breaks down everything Samsung announced, device by device, so you know what changed and what it costs. Every device also got more expensive this year. Samsung and several outlets point to the ongoing memory chip shortage as the reason. Here is what you are getting for the extra money. 1. Galaxy Z Fold8 Image source: Samsung on YouTube The Galaxy Z Fold8 is Samsung’s new mainstream Fold. It is shorter and wider than any Fold before it, and folded, it looks more like a passport. Unfolded, the screen takes on a shape closer to that of a small tablet, so reading and watching video feel more comfortable. At 201g, it is the lightest Fold Samsung has made. Main screen: 7.6 inches, 120Hz Cover screen: 5.5 inches, 120Hz Chip: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy Storage: 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB Battery: 4,800mAh, with 45W fast charging Cameras: 50MP wide and 50MP ultra-wide (no telephoto lens) Water and dust resistance: IP48 Price: starts at $1,899 in the US and £1,699 in the UK It costs less than the Z Fold 7 did at launch. That is because the Fold8 is a brand new shape, not a direct replacement for last year’s phone. It also has a bigger battery and lighter body than the Fold 7, though it drops the telephoto camera the Fold 7 had. 2. Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra Image source: Samsung on YouTube The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is the true follow-up to last year’s Z Fold 7. It keeps the taller, narrower shape you already know, but it is now Samsung’s thinnest Fold ever at just 4.1mm when unfolded. A new hinge, called Armor FlexHinge, makes it easier to open. Main screen: 8.0 inches, 120Hz Cover screen: 6.5 inches, 120Hz Chip: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy Storage: 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB Battery: 5,000mAh, with 45W fast charging (charges to 67% in about 30 minutes) Cameras: 200MP wide, 50MP ultra wide, and 10MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom Water and dust resistance: IP48 Price: starts at $2,099 in the US and £1,899 in the UK That is $100 more than the Z Fold 7 cost at launch. Samsung and other outlets point to the memory chip shortage as the reason prices went up across the lineup this year. 3. Galaxy Z Flip8 Image source: Samsung on YouTube The Galaxy Z Flip8 looks a lot like the Flip 7 from the outside, but it is now Samsung’s slimmest and lightest Flip yet at 180g. A new hinge makes it open and close more smoothly. Main screen: 6.9 inches, 120Hz Cover screen: 4.1 inches Chip: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the US and Canada, Exynos 2600 in Europe, the UK, and South Korea Storage: 256GB or 512GB Battery: 4,300mAh, with 25W fast charging Cameras: 50MP wide and 12MP ultra wide Water and dust resistance: IP48 Price: starts at $1,199 in the US and £1,149 in the UK Your Flip8’s chip depends on where you buy it, so check your region’s version before you compare notes with a friend abroad. 4. Galaxy Watch9 Image source: Samsung on YouTube The Galaxy Watch9 keeps the same cushion-shaped case Samsung introduced with the Watch 8. What changes is what is inside it, plus a bigger battery. Sizes: 40mm and 44mm Chip: Snapdragon Wear Elite Battery: up to 20% bigger than the Watch 8 Water and dust resistance: 5ATM and IP68 Health features: Heart Health Score, Daily Cardio Load, Fitness Index, and improved sleep apnea detection Software: Wear OS 7 with One UI 9 Watch Price: starts at $379 in the US and £319 in the UK 5. Galaxy Watch Ultra2 Image source: Samsung on YouTube The Galaxy Watch Ultra2 is built for people who push their bodies hard, on the trail or underwater. It is now 12% thinner than the original Ultra, even with a much bigger battery inside. Size: 47mm Chip: Snapdragon Wear Elite Battery: 35% bigger than the original Ultra, rated for up to 60 hours Display: up to 5,000 nits, the brightest Samsung has put on a watch Durability: 10ATM, IP69K, and dive rated New features: professional diving mode built with Mares, trail running tracking, hydration alerts, and all the health features from the Watch9 Price: starts at $699 in the US and £649 in the UK 6. Galaxy Glasses Image source: Samsung on YouTube Samsung closed the event with a preview of its first smart glasses, officially called intelligent eyewear. Samsung is not selling them yet. They arrive this fall. Built with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker for the design, and with Google for the software Chip: Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 Battery: up to 9 hours, plus 7 more full charges from the case No display. The glasses use audio and a built-in camera instead Runs on Gemini, so you can ask questions, get translations, and save notes just by talking You can use the glasses to summarize messages and read them out loud, translate conversations as they happen, save whiteboard notes straight to Samsung Notes, get walking directions, and share what you see during a video call. Pricing has not been announced yet. 7. One UI 9 The new foldables are the first phones to run One UI 9, built on Android 17. A new AI Assistant Activity dashboard that shows you what your phone has automated for you Smart Switch now moves your passwords, passkeys, and call history over from an iPhone Quick Share now works with AirDrop Gemini can now handle 40 or more apps for you, from booking a table to ordering food A free 6-month trial of Google AI Pro, which normally comes with 5TB
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