Poor MTN Nigeria Plc (mind you, not on money but influence), EFCC has joined the list of investigators of its  public listing. I think they should change the mobile giant name to One Week One Trouble Nigeria Plc; better check if Anezi Okoro did not trademark that – he has a book of same name.

MTN Nigeria on Saturday said that it was being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the listing of its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

A statement posted on the exchange web site signed by MTN Nigeria Communications, Company Secretary, Uto Ukpanah, confirmed the investigation.

The statement said the company received a letter on May 23 from EFCC requesting information and documentation related to the listing of our shares on the NSE.

“MTN Nigeria has not been accused of any wrongdoing by the EFCC.

“We wish to reiterate that we received all regulatory approvals required to list our shares on the NSE, as publicly confirmed by NSE and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“As a law-abiding and responsible corporate citizen, we are cooperating fully with the authorities.

“We are committed to good governance and to abiding by the extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” said the statement.

My position on these investigations remains as noted here.

That SEC is Investigating MTN Nigeria’s Listing Is A Distraction from Needed Market Reforms

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There’s a difference between ethical and legal behaviour. On face value, it seems MTN found and exploited that distinction. Finding a loophole in the law and using it is completely legal. However, circumventing the spirit of the agreement (which was to give Nigerians a financial stake in MTN) using a loophole is unethical. The governments approach is a losing strategy because its fighting on the wrong field. It’s deploying legal arsenal were it needs to stage a PR assault. MTN will win every legal spark but that’s not clear with a PR campaign. The government currently, is like a lion in sea fighting a sea serpent, it will not win. It needs to bring the war to land to stand a chance at victory in this battle. It still does need to update the laws to stop this happening again.

Financial Times writes on how China has become an Alibaba nation. Yes, from shopping to movies, lending to payment, and to anything including brick-and-mortar supermarkets, you cannot avoid Alibaba in China. Then, it began to evolve as a Jack Ma nation: “When a foreign leader came to China and the first person he wanted to meet was Jack Ma rather than President Xi , you knew the company was going to be in trouble”. When that happened, Jack Ma started feeling heat – and had to retire to early golfing regime!

It is indeed a sprawling enterprise. Chinese people can shop at Alibaba’s ecommerce platform, apply for a loan from its financial unit, pay for goods with Alibaba’s e-wallet, and get their purchases delivered through Alibaba’s logistics network. When they are tired of their stuff, they can sell it on Alibaba’s second-hand goods platform. It runs a brick-and-mortar supermarket called Freshippo and operates a food-delivery app. Some of the movies on its streaming site — including this year’s Best Picture Oscar-winning Green Book — are produced by Alibaba Pictures. And all of these services are powered by AliCloud.

Alibaba is huge. Fintech Collective reports on how it uses crowdfunding to provide health insurance to communities and users:”Ant Financial launched a healthcare-coverage product Xiang Hu Bao in October and already has about 65 million clients. They pay small monthly fees that are pooled to help cover treatment costs for members stricken by diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and even Ebola.”

Call it crowdfunding for health care –- an emerging industry in China that itself is becoming crowded. Ant Financial is one of at least 50 companies, including ride hailing giant Didi Chuxing and a startup backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., upending the conventional health-insurance business by creating what essentially are online collectives. It’s a unique business model that probably only can be pulled off in China. The country’s leapfrog into the smartphone age means more than 700 million people can sign up, make monthly payments and even upload medical documents and bills with just a few clicks.

By Nnamdi Odumody

Cognitev is a startup founded by two Egyptians, Moustafa Mahmoud and Ahmed Hassan, which is leveraging artificial intelligence to transform the marketing experience.

It has created various products which include Instascaler, the world’s first automated advertising platform which helps to automate the ads creation, optimization and AB testing of its users campaigns, enabling the ads to run seamless  on multiple traffic sources with the push of a button. Instascaler monitors campaigns and ad performance automatically and adjusts them to lower customer cost and increase the effectiveness, shutting down any ad which isn’t producing positive results on investment, and also adjusts the bid by increasing it or decreasing depending on the results.

Cognition is what drives human progress. Understanding the meaning of the data our minds process every second is one of our brain’s most powerful functions. At Cognitev we try to bring this to machines using the power of Artificial Intelligence. The application of this science is limitless and can transform industries such such as advertising, ecommerce, and more.

Another product from its stable is Metadsp.ai, the ultimate traffic acquisition platform which is connected to multiple premium traffic sources. It uses a unique process to ensure that each website gets the highest quality and most relevant traffic with capability of automating ad creations as well as create campaigns for any of the traffic sources it is connected to.

Its technology optimizes campaigns in real time, by monitoring them together with ad performance automatically, adjusting them to lower customer cost and increase their effectiveness while shutting down campaigns not producing results on budget spent, and adjusting the bid depending on the results.

Another product, Metadsp, is the world’s first traffic as a service platform which enables you to drive high quality traffic and conversations to your own website or customers. It currently has over 2,571 customers which include Citibank, Mindshare, Samsung, Panasonic and Gillette.

Nigerian brands should hop on the train and ride to enjoy the Cognitev experience especially when a local startup creates something in that space. The future of marketing experiences will be anchored on AI.

By Nnamdi Odumody

Chinese telecommunication equipment giant Huawei Technologies was recently banned from operating in the United States by President Donald Trump-led Government on allegations that its products was being used to spy on the United States by the Chinese Government. Largely, this suspicion had emanated owing to the ties Huawei founder, Ren Zhengfei, a former Red Army (Military) personnel, may have in his country.

This ban resulted to technology giants like Google, Qualcomm, Intel and ARM suspending partnerships with Huawei. Huawei relies on Google’s Android Operating systems for its smartphones, and on Qualcomm, Intel, Broadcom, Infineon and ARM for its semiconductors. It depends on Microsoft’s Windows Operating System for its tablets and notebooks. Google’s Android will continue to run on Huawei’s existing devices but the presidential ban means upgrades to Android’s latest versions and Huawei’s subsequent products will be affected.

Huawei seems not to be bothered about this latest development as it has been working on an Operating System which will power it’s devices according to Richard Yu, Chief Executive of its consumer division.

Huawei has been at the centre of the ongoing US-China trade war which has seen it surpassed an American consumer electronics champion (Apple) to become the world’s second biggest smartphone seller, behind Samsung. It’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested last year on charges of financial crimes considering the fact that Iran, an enemy of the US which was hit by economic sanctions was a key market in its global sales.

According to IDC, Huawei recorded an upward sales trajectory from 39.3 million smartphones shipped in the first quarter of 2018 to 59.1 million units in the first quarter of 2019 while Apple’s iPhone shipments shrunk from 52.2 million in the same quarter last year to between 36 and 43 million in first quarter 2019.

In technological patents, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization, Huawei’s filing of 5405 patents in 2018 put it in first position, and taking the lead in the development of cutting edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence and 5G, ahead of its U.S rivals, must have made the Department of State to cut them down to size.

The casualties of this ban will be the 197 Fortune 500 companies including U.S companies which rely on their equipment. Other members of the Five Eye Intelligence Network: Canada, U.K, Australia and New Zealand are expected to follow Washington DC in preventing the Chinese ICT giant from conducting business operations in their territories.

In the long run, the Chinese might prove winners of this battle. Speed, precision and scale is why China controls the global hardware supply chain with Qualcomm and Apple heavily reliant in the Shenzhen hardware ecosystem and a retaliatory move by President Xi Jinping banning Apple, Qualcomm and other U.S, British and Canadian Technology Companies from having their products contract manufactured in China will force them to shift their production home where labour costs are expensive, affecting their competitiveness and reducing their global market share.

The Chinese consumer market is the most sympathetic to any domestic brand, no matter the advantages the foreign rivals possess. Xiaomi, Lenovo, Oppo, One Plus and Transsion Holdings which along with Huawei are the top Chinese consumer electronic brands globally might gradually migrate from the Android Operating System to a Chinese made O.S and domestic semiconductor manufacturers. The effect of this will be too difficult for Google, Microsoft, Apple, Qualcomm and other Western brands which rely on Chinese production to be competitive in their industries to bear.

The U.S China trade war is the new Cold War. It is a battle over the New Arms Race i.e. ’’Leadership in Exponential Technologies’’. Only time will tell who will emerge victorious.