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  • Lagos, Nigeria
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  • July 28 2023

👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Airtel Africa loses $151 million

In partnership with Share this newsletter: Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية TGIF Starlink is now available in Malawi.  The service launched in the country on Wednesday, about a week after it launched in Kenya. Malawi becomes the sixth African country to receive the satellite internet service after Nigeria, Mauritius, Rwanda, Mozambique and Kenya. The service is set to launch in 17 more African countries in 2023, including Zambia and Angola. In today’s edition Quick Fire Airtel Africa loses $151 million in Q1 2023 Hackers attack Kenyan businesses Funding tracker The World Wide Web3 Event: TC Live Opportunities Quick Fire How Israel Oloruntoba thinking about products Israel Ayo Oloruntoba is a product design manager at TradeAlly. With about four years of design experience, he has helped businesses and organisations solve problems, leading to customer retention, growth, and revenue increase. Israel possesses extensive experience in working on multiple products ranging from custom startup solutions to simple and complex enterprise software. Image source: Israel Oloruntoba Explain your job to a five-year-old. The toys you play with, I design them. It’s my job as a product designer to ensure that you, first, have the right kind of toy. Creating toys that just make you happy when you use them is what I do.  And is product design something you stumbled on? Or is it something you’ve always wanted to do? For my adult years, it’s definitely something that I wanted to do. I started first as a graphic designer and I also was interested in product management and engineering; I even learnt to code at some point. So I looked for something that was in between Product design was what made most sense. I’m also very interested in building products that people will actually use and enjoy. So it’s a little bit of both.  I wouldn’t say my life’s dream was to be a product designer. But, it’s something that I stumbled upon and something I was also very interested in basically. What’s one thing you think any aspiring product designer should know? That product design is not just about pixels, it’s not just about shiny things. It’s about the thinking. It’s about really understanding how products works. It’s not just going on Figma and putting squares, circles and text together. Understanding how people use things, understanding people’s mental modes for the basic things that they use, that’s product design. It’s seeing beyond the shiny interfaces and shiny looks of products generally. You’ve had freelance and salaried employment. Which do you prefer? And why? For me, I prefer salaried. I’m not the biggest planner, but when it comes to things within my sphere of control, I don’t mind having them within my sphere of control.  And I think the non-predictability that comes with freelance requires meticulous planning. I personally paid employment, especially in a startup, not in a company. Because in a startup, you get to do a lot of exciting stuff all the time. In bigger companies, it’s very easy to be very obscure, and just faff around and not do anything.  Can one become a product designer with Canva alone? Or are tools like Illustrator and Figma critical? That’s actually a very interesting question. I think you can, especially with the new AI tool that Canva has. If we go back to what I said about what product designers need to understand, which is the product thinking itself, and how people use products, I think it’s less of the tool that you use, and more of the thinking behind what you’re creating that determines how good you are as a product designer. It’s less of the tool and more of the thinking.  Speaking of AI, what do you think about the rush for AI? Is it legit? Or will it die down as Web3 did? I think there are two sides to it.  There’s the business side and there’s the product side, which is the everyday use. I think that AI is not just unlike Web3 because everyday people use it. Web3 is very specific to people that just have an interest in it. AI is something that goes into everyday life. And a lot of people in the world have access to it so I think it’s something that is here to stay for a very long time. Final question. What’s something you’re insanely proud of? I designed Termii to be what it is right now. Secure payments with Monnify Monnify has simplified how businesses accept payments to enable growth. We are trusted by Piggyvest, Buypower, Wakanow, Fairmoney, Cowrywise, and over 10,000 Nigerian businesses. Get your Monnify account today here. Telecoms Airtel Africa loses $151 million in Q1 2023 Image source: Airtel Airtel Africa has reported a loss after tax in its Q1—April 1 to June 30, 2023 results. The telecom reported a loss after tax of $151 million, compared to a profit after tax of $178 million during the same period in 2022 due to the currency devaluation in Nigeria.  Growth in revenue but a currency exchange loss: The telco’s financial statement reported that its mobile services revenue grew by 19.1% in constant currency, driven by voice revenue growth of 11.9% and data revenue growth of 29.8%.  Mobile money revenue grew by 31.2% in constant currency. Similarly, its total customer base grew by 8.8% to 143.1 million, as the penetration of mobile data and mobile money services continued to rise, driving a 22.0% increase in data customers to 56.8 million and a 24.3% increase in mobile money customers to 34.3 million. The telco’s revenue also grew by 9.6% to $1.37 billion in Q1 2023, compared to $1.25 billion in the same period in 2022.  Comments on financial performance: Airtel Africa’s CEO, Olusegun Ogunsanya, stated that the group delivered a strong operating performance with improvement in both constant currency revenue growth and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) margin despite the challenging macro environment. The telco saw an improvement in voice, data, and mobile money but

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