HiPipo Money

SplashData, which makes password management applications, has released its annual “Worst Passwords” list compiled from common passwords that are posted by hackers. The top three — “password,” “123456,” and “12345678″ — have not changed since last year. New ones include “jesus,” “ninja,” “mustang,” “password1,” and “welcome.” Other passwords have moved up and down on the list. (Time.com)

You should have different passwords for all of your accounts. To make it easier to remember them all, Think about passwords as “passphrases.” For instance, use a phrase like “dog eats bone” and add underscores, dashes, hyphens, and other punctuation marks to satisfy the special character requirement: “dog_eats_bone!”

Here’s the full list:

1. password
2, 123456
3. 12345678
4. abc123
5. qwerty
6. monkey
7. letmein
8. dragon
9. 111111
10. baseball
11. iloveyou
12. trustno1
13. 1234567
14. sunshine
15. master
16. 123123
17. welcome
18. shadow
19. ashley
20. football
21. jesus
22. michael
23. ninja
24. mustang

Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunications services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, including Uganda added 10 million customers across its operations in 17 African countries in less than 12 months to cross 60 million subscribers mark. This was released in a statement by the company which further says that the company hopes to add subscribers on the continent through maintaining a strong focus on rural penetration, innovation and customer responsiveness.

 In Uganda Airtel has seen growth with Innovative services such as Airtel 3.75G that is currently arguably the most affordable high speed 3.75G product on Uganda market. Airtel has expanded 3.75G data services across 11 markets and mobile commerce service “Airtel Money” in 15 African markets, Uganda inclusive hence shaking up the competition in the mobile financial services space.

Bharti Airtel with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa now ranks among the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. Airtel is ranked among BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands list with an overall ranking of 71 and brand value of USD 11.5 billion. Airtel has been ranked ahead of top global brands such as Sony (86), MTN (88),The first African Brand on the list.

“Umeme began an initial public offering of a 38.6 percent stake on Oct. 15 at 275 Ugandan shillings (1 U.S. cent) a share. The offer for 622.4 million shares closes Nov. 7 and will be followed by listing on the Uganda Securities Exchange in the capital, Kampala, on Nov. 30. The shares will also list on the Nairobi Securities Exchange after regulatory approval.” bloomberg.com

I have for long followed IPOs and stock markets alas for American based companies, such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, since these are at the center of Tech!  Given that many Ugandans are yet to connect to the electricity grid, one sign of a big market, it is good to see Umeme an energy company with a lot of prospects of growth, going through an IPO and trading on  Uganda Securities Exchange.   

Uganda has telecoms among the most profitable and actually the biggest companies. Unfortunately Ugandans have hardly had a chance to invest in such companies as MTN given that MTN Group is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and not on USE hence making it hard for Ugandans in Uganda to invest in such a profitable group. Nevertheless, I have a dream that one day soon MTN (Uganda) will trade on Uganda Security Exchange!

Apple has a reputation of delivering high quality and pricy products that are hardly affordable by majority of people in the developing world. Now that the first billion Smartphone and Tablet users, is almost covered most of whom are in developed countries, the next billion of Smartphone and Tablet users will be more price conscious. It could be due to that reason that apple has releases  iPad Mini which still at  $329 is costly compared to Amazon Kindle an education product that goes for less than $150.

If Apple iPad Mini is to find more education purposes with the second billion of mobile device user, Apple will need to devise ways of delivering quality at much more reduced price otherwise, the writing is on the wall that Android based devices will become the darling of the second billion of mobile users if prices are not checked for apple devices.

From the west where the mobile revolution started, Telecoms had a way of retaining customers with contracts. This is still the case though fast changing. In Africa, Uganda in particular, we started with people referring to their phone as “My Celtel” at the time when Celtel was the only provider, but this was short lived when other players joined the market. 5-10 years ago a telecom could talk about retaining customers but the market is fast becoming very competitive without a single telecom being the best at all services including voice, data, video and mobile payments.  People are increasing using 3 or more telecom lines which they shift between based on which has a better daily, weekly or monthly packaged to suite the customer needs. The customers are becoming “Polygamous” where it best suits their needs!

There is now very little prospect of any individual telecom fully owning, rather than sharing, the customer and telecoms will increasingly keep losing customer ownership if they do not respond fast to customer’s changing mindset. Operators need to understand and respond to fast-changing customer expectations and behaviors if they are to fight off the competitive threat from other providers. This will require operators to communicate clearly the underlying value of the network and the sources of added value that differentiate their offerings in new service areas. Innovation in the service model could also be used to build brand loyalty in the same way technology players have done. Ernest & Young -Top 10 risks in telecommunications 2012!

The Uganda telecom industry has seen price wars on voice leading to reduction in Average Revenue per User. As this price competition threatened, the telecoms core cash cow, many are searching for services that could replace reducing revenues through voice calls. Data and Mobile Financial Services have come as the lead alternative services and promise to bring in bigger percentage of telecoms revenue.

The generation Y (Young people) that are the biggest population are increasingly using data services and less voice. Many young people will increasingly pay more for data than they would pay for voice more so that Voice over IP option is becoming a reality. The telecoms that will survive the future should start shifting their business model from minutes to bytes.

MTN, Orange, UTL, Warid and Airtel Uganda have all launched data services some offering true 3.75G experience while others offering 2.5G marketed as 3.75G! The market forces will prevail and telecoms that offer good speeds and affordable bytes (not minutes) package will prevail and lead the future.