African Tech Round-Up

The gravy train may well be over at Africa’s largest tech company (by market value)— Naspers. Naspers CEO, Koos Bekker, told investors late last week that the coming year is going to be a trying one for the company. At this point, Naspers has only one card up its sleeve, and it’s called Tencent Holdings. After all, Naspers’ 33 percent stake in the Chinese technology company currently accounts for almost half its revenue, and its internet and pay-tv businesses are stalling at a time when they desperately need growth to keep competitors like Google, Facebook and Amazon at bay. Bekker’s cautionary statements led to a 0.3 percent decline in the firm’s share price-- which seems like a tame reaction by the market considering that S&P Global Ratings had already changed its outlook on Naspers' credit rating to BBB-, which is only one step up from junk status. In short, it’s rough in these streets. Last week saw DEMO Africa hosted in Southern Africa for the first time in its five year history. DEMO Africa 2016 wen