The global smartphone market is heading for its steepest annual contraction on record, with shipments projected to slump by 13.9% this year to 1.08 billion units, Counterpoint Research said on Monday, citing a worsening shortage of memory chips. The forecast is a downgrade from the 12.4% decline projected in February, with the squeeze in global…
Intel is refusing to concede the handheld gaming sector, launching a aggressive counteroffensive despite the market disruption caused by yesterday’s Valve Steam Deck price hike. At Computex today, the silicon giant unveiled its brand-new Arc G-Series processor family, a specialized line of hardware engineered explicitly for portable gaming devices and built on the foundation of…
Independent gemstone and jewellery verification is becoming a key differentiator for jewellers as buyers prioritise trust, authenticity and proven value. South Africa’s jewellery industry is changing, not just in how pieces look, but in how they are bought and trusted. While demand for fine, and bespoke jewellery continues to grow, driven by luxury consumption, investment…
Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, June 11, 2025. Massimo Valicchia | Nurphoto | Getty Images Pope Leo warned over the weekend that a “social calamity” could come from mass unemployment due to the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies. Prediction market traders appear to think that…
FindHomes co-founder Adrian Bunge For most South Africans, buying a home is the largest financial commitment they will ever make. It is also one of the least transparent. Listings sites show what is for sale, but they offer little insight into what a suburb is actually doing – whether prices are rising or stagnating, how…
Plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEVs) outsold pure battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) by more than two to one in South Africa last year, marking the local market out as a global outlier even as overall electric car adoption remained stuck below 1% of new vehicle sales. That’s according to the latest International Energy Agency (IEA) Global Electric…
Andrew Potgieter, sales director SA, Climb. Climb Channel Solutions (Climb), a global technology distributor and wholly owned subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Climb Global Solutions, has entered the South African market as part of its ongoing EMEA growth strategy. The company has also penned an agreement with cyber security firm Sophos. According to the agreement, Climb will…
Eskom is in exploratory talks with the World Bank over funding for a multibillion-dollar nuclear programme that could be launched within 12 months, a senior company official said on Wednesday. The state-owned utility, which runs Africa’s only operational nuclear power station near Cape Town, is preparing a request for information covering up to 5.2GW of…
The WAEMU public securities market recorded strong demand in the week of May 12 to May 15, with 3 member states raising CFA92 billion against an initial target of CFA85 billion. Investors submitted CFA196.67 billion in bids, giving the week a coverage rate of 231%. The estimated absorption rate was 47%, showing that treasuries received…
The escalating conflict in the Middle East has sent shockwaves far beyond the geopolitical arena, landing squarely at South African filling stations. As diesel prices breach the R30-per-litre mark, fuelled by supply disruptions linked to the conflict involving the U.S., Israel, and Iran, the traditional calculus of transport is being fundamentally rewritten. Industry leaders suggest…
