TechCentral

Tencent Holdings, in which South Africa’s Naspers has a 34 per cent equity stake, has surpassed China Mobile to become the country’s most valuable corporation, underscoring the growing importance of a vibrant private economy over lumbering state-owned enterprise.

Tencent rose by 4.2 per cent to HK$210,20 in Hong Kong on Monday, reaching a market value of HK$1.99 trillion (US$256,6bn), edging past China Mobile’s HK$1.97 trillion and putting the tech company in the ranks of the world’s ten largest public companies, including Apple and Google parent Alphabet. Tencent’s shares have jumped four-fold in as many years by building a lead in mobile gaming and online advertising, surpassing a roughly 20 per cent advance in the Hang Seng Index.

The company’s rise exemplifies the new realities of the world’s second largest economy, where smokestack industries prepare to lay off workers while younger companies such as e-commerce giant Alibaba Group make inroads into everything from finance to media.

Private businesses, marginalised for decades by a state sector that enjoyed easy funding from government-owned banks, now play a pivotal role in hiring and innovation, and the best performers are spearheading China’s shift toward a consumption-led economy.
“China’s economic restructuring is happening faster than many have expected,’ said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist for Mizuho Securities Asia.
Services accounted for more than half of output last year for the first time, while consumption made up more than 70 per cent of the expansion in the first half of this year.

The rise of companies such as Tencent shows China can unlock still more of its growth potential by giving more market access to private companies and rolling back state monopolies, he said.
Since 2006, the title of China’s most valuable company has been held mainly by government-controlled industrial heavyweights such as China Mobile, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China or PetroChina, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Tencent arch-foe Alibaba also briefly held the title just after its 2014 debut.
Chinese internet sector stocks have been buoyed by the strategic importance the country now places on the sector. State-backed funds and enterprises are championing some of the biggest private investment rounds in companies such as Ant Financial and Didi Chuxing.
President Xi Jinping, recognising the sector’s importance to both political and economic control, has designated its top entrepreneurs key targets for party outreach.

It wasn’t always like this. For years, China’s private companies operated in the long shadow of the gargantuan state sector, deprived of capital and support.
Early entrepreneurs founded nationwide brands from Wahaha mineral water to Haier appliances, paving the way for today’s captains of industry like Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Tencent’s own Ma Huateng.

Hungry to expand, they sought out overseas money: Alibaba gained investment from SoftBank Group and Yahoo; Tencent won the backing of Naspers; Baidu’s early investors included IDG Capital Partners, according to Crunchbase.
Along with Alibaba, Tencent has now advanced to the vanguard of the private sector. Its strategy of driving revenue growth via advertising and gaming through messaging applications WeChat and QQ have brought more than a billion users into the fold. The company has beaten revenue and earnings estimates in all but one of the past six quarters.

The company has designs to build a Disney-like entertainment empire. It’s splurging on content from anime to Hollywood movies to generate ad sales, which rose 60 per cent in the June quarter. Popular titles including Cross Fire and Naruto Mobile helped Tencent more than double smartphone gaming revenue to 9.6 billion yuan in the period.

“When it comes to intellectual property, you have to serve the chicken many ways,’ Tencent’s Ma, China’s third-richest man, said of his aspirations during a rare press conference earlier this year. “It should be viewed as cross-platform entertainment and be developed from multiple dimensions.’

(c) 2016 Bloomberg LP

Source: Tech Central

Reportedly on Tech Central, telecommunications and postal services minister Siyabonga Cwele will institute legal proceedings against communications regulator Icasa to stop the agency from going ahead with a plan to allocate access to radio frequency spectrum for wireless broadband.

On 15 July, Icasa issued an invitation to apply for access to spectrum to provide next-generation 4G/LTE services using the 700MHz, 800MHz and 2,6GHz frequency bands.

The move was unexpected given that the telecoms department had not finalised a white paper on integrated ICT policy, which was expected to provide direction on how the spectrum would be allocated.

It’s now clear that the move by Icasa has enraged Cwele, who said in a statement on 25 July 2016 that he intends suing the regulator to stop the auction from going ahead.

“After considering the ITA and on the advice of senior counsel, the minister intends taking legal action to review the actions of Icasa,’ his office said in a statement.
“The minister’s decision follows two meetings held with the regulator on 15 and 19 July 2016 that failed to resolve the matter amicably. Icasa was furthermore not prepared to subject itself to the intergovernmental cooperation governance procedures,’ the ministry said in the statement.

“The position of government is that it is the custodian of spectrum, which is a national and public resource and whose utilisation must benefit all the people of South Africa,’ it added.
“There is presently no policy direction on spectrum that has been issued. The policy process is ongoing but as yet still incomplete.

“In taking its decision to go ahead and by publishing its notice, Icasa has failed to adhere to the prescripts of the relevant policies, legislation and regulations, and in particular the provisions of [the] Electronic Communications [Act].
“In addition, a request to Icasa by government in September 2015 to halt this process, after they published the information memorandum for international mobile telecommunications, was ignored.

“The minister is concerned that Icasa’s invitation to apply for the auctioning of the spectrum was issued without consultation and prior notification to government as the policy maker. A further concern is the haste with which Icasa is proceeding to dispose of the spectrum given that this spectrum will not be immediately available.
“The minister is acting in good faith to ensure that interested parties who may wish to respond to Icasa’s ITA do not act precipitously by engaging in a process which may ultimately be found to be invalid and therefore suffer unintended consequences as a result thereof.’

It’s not known when government’s ICT policy white paper will be published. The last communication on the subject from the ministry suggested it was being discussed at cabinet level.

Operators, including Vodacom, Cell C, MTN and Telkom, have been champing at the bit for access to new spectrum to allow them to extend 4G/LTE services to more South Africans.

Icasa’s move comes despite the fact that broadcasters are still using the spectrum at 700MHz and 800MHz for analogue television services. These so-called ‘digital dividend’ bands will only become available for broadband once South Africa has completed its migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television.

In its ITA, Icasa set a reserve price of R3 billion for each of four lots of spectrum it intends making available to interested operators. Those who are successful must meet tough roll-out targets and each must help launch three mobile virtual network operators, which must be at least 51 per cent held by historically disadvantaged groups.
© 2016 NewsCentral Media

Source: Tech Central

According to Tech Central, veteran journalist and SABC acting CEO Jimi Matthews has quit, saying in his resignation letter that what is happening at the state-owned broadcaster is “wrong’ and that he can “no longer be a part of it.’

Matthews tweeted a copy of his resignation letter on Monday morning, 27 June 2016. “It is with great sadness that I tender my immediate resignation,’ he wrote in the letter, which is addressed to SABC board chairman Obert Maguvhe. “For many months I have compromised the values that I hold dear under the mistaken belief that I could be more effective inside the SABC than outside, passing comment from the sidelines,’ he wrote.

“In the process, the prevailing, corrosive atmosphere has impacted negatively on my moral judgment and has made me complicit in many decisions which I am not proud of,’ he continued. “I wish also to apologise to the many people who I’ve let down by remaining silent when my voice needed to be heard,’ he wrote.

Tech Central also reported that three SABC journalists have taken their boss, CEO Hlaudi Motsoeneng, to task over his censorship of the news and for his decision to suspend three of their colleagues.

In a strongly worded letter addressed to Motsoeneng, Busisiwe Ntuli (executive producer: Special Assignment), Krivani Pillay (executive producer: SAfm current affairs) and Jacques Steenkamp (senior investigative reporter), have demanded a meeting to discuss recent developments at the SABC.

“Our newsroom has become a source of derision, despair and criticism from the people that we are fundamentally accountable to, the public at large,’ the trio write in the letter, which is dated Sunday, 26 June.

In their letter, Ntuli, Pillay and Steenkamp say that the recent decisions to ban the reading of newspaper headlines on air and to can The Editors show on SAfm amount to “censorship, unless reasonable and professional explanations can be advanced within the framework of the editorial policy and our obligation to serve the public.’

Tech Central reports that the three journalists have also taken strong exception to the suspension of three of their colleages for “expressing their right to freedom of expression by simply debating and assessing the newsworthiness of events as expected during editorial meetings.’

The Media Workers Association of South Africa (MWASA) said in a statement, “The news of the resignation by Matthews is a sad indictment on the failures of South Africa to meet the aspirations of our deserving people.”

“We should expect a difficult day at the office now that it is time for the ‘Hlaudexit’. Protests, petitions, courts and parliamentary debates have chipped away at Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s stay in and benefit from ill-gotten office. He will not go down alone. Hlaudi Motsoeneng and his group executive committee, the Maguvhe-led board and minister Faith Muthambi, and Portfolio Committee on Communications, must go.”

“MWASA has again been purged by the SABC for refusing to trade in its independence and it has its relationship officially terminated as at end June 2016. The Union will be proceeding shortly with strike action centered at one of the many abusive Temporary Employment Service providers at the SABC.”