South Africa’s Vodacom eyes bigger slice of Kenya’s Safaricom

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Victoria from Techpoint here,

Here’s what I’ve got for you today:

Vodacom eyes bigger slice of Safaricom
Safaricom gets nod for KSh 40B bond raise
TikTok removed 41,000 Nigerian videos daily

Vodacom eyes bigger slice of Safaricom

South African telco Vodacom is reportedly in talks to boost its stake in Safaricom, Kenya’s telecom powerhouse valued at about $9 billion, according to people familiar with the discussions. The move could mean Vodacom takes on a bigger slice of the business, beyond the roughly 39.93% it already owns.

This isn’t a random bet; Vodacom is clearly doubling down on Kenya. Increasing its holding in Safaricom gives it more influence in East Africa’s largest telecom operator. Plus, Safaricom’s value has been surging: it’s now pegged at around KSh 1.19 trillion Kenyan shillings (about R157 billion).

But here’s the twist: last week, Vodacom made headlines for refusing to separate M-Pesa, Safaricom’s mobile money engine, and list it on its own. The company’s CEO said M-Pesa is too tightly integrated with the telco’s telecom business to split off. That’s a big signal: Vodacom sees the fintech and mobile sides as one value bundle, not standalone plays.

The timing of the talks is notable because Kenya’s government has floated an idea to break Safaricom into three pieces: telecom services, infrastructure (like towers), and the M-Pesa business. If Vodacom snaps up more state-owned shares, it could give the company even more leverage in discussions around a possible restructuring.

Of course, nothing is official yet. The sources say Vodacom and Kenyan treasury officials are still discussing terms, and both companies declined to comment publicly. This could be a strategic power play as Kenya looks to raise revenue, and Vodacom looks to tighten its grip on a cash cow.

If this deal goes through, it could reshape how Safaricom operates and who controls its future, especially as Vodacom leans into the mobile-money landscape and eyes deeper integration with its East African operations.

Safaricom gets nod for KSh 40B bond raise

Safaricom has just secured the green light to raise up to KSh 40 billion through a new bond programme, one of the biggest fundraising plays we’ve seen from a Kenyan corporate lately. The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) signed off on the plan on November 7, and the telco officially announced it today. Instead of dropping one big bond, Safaricom will issue it in smaller tranches whenever market conditions make sense.

What does this mean, really? Safaricom basically wants to borrow money from the public, but instead of taking one huge loan, it will borrow in smaller bits over time. Investors will buy Safaricom’s bonds, Safaricom will use the money for its projects, and then pay those investors back with interest later.

So what’s behind this massive cash move? Safaricom is in a heavy investment cycle. Voice revenues have stalled, and the company is leaning hard on data growth, network expansion and Ethiopia’s rollout to fuel the next phase. The money will help fund its KSh72–78 billion capex plan for the year, with more than KSh50 billion going into Kenya alone, plus another chunk into strengthening the still-costly Ethiopia venture.

This bond also marks a strategic shift: Safaricom is borrowing entirely in Kenyan shillings, avoiding the exchange rate headaches that rocked its balance sheet during the Ethiopia expansion. The company cleared its $400 million loan last November, and this new local-currency push is its attempt to keep future financing simpler and safer.

The timing is no coincidence. Investor appetite for corporate bonds is warming up again, especially after East African Breweries’ recent KSh16.7 billion success. Safaricom, with its track record and market dominance, is one of the few issuers that can realistically pull off something this large and potentially breathe life back into the NSE’s sluggish debt market.

Details of the first tranche are still under wraps, but we know this Medium Term Note programme allows Safaricom to issue everything from green to social bonds if it wants. The next move is final CMA approval for the tranche paperwork, and then we’ll see just how eager the market is to back Safaricom’s next growth sprint.

TikTok removed 41,000 Nigerian videos daily

If you thought TikTok in Nigeria was wild this year, the numbers say otherwise. The platform quietly removed 7.4 million videos in the first six months of 2025. That is over 41,000 videos deleted every single day for breaking its rules. The latest transparency report shows just how aggressively TikTok is now scrubbing harmful or misleading content before it ever reaches users’ screens.

What’s striking is the speed. Nearly 9 out of every 10 removed videos had zero views, meaning TikTok caught them before anyone in Nigeria even saw them. Most of that work is done by the platform’s automated systems, which deleted more than 6.3 million videos between January and June. And when users report something, TikTok now responds faster too, with about 78% of reports handled within two hours in Q2.

But not all violations are equal. The biggest takedowns in Nigeria came from familiar problem areas: bullying and harassment, dangerous challenges, nudity, graphic violence, and the sale of illegal or regulated goods. Youth safety is a major priority, too, with almost all content involving minors being removed before it spreads. It’s clear the platform is leaning heavily on AI to keep up with the volume.

Still, scams and AI-generated misinformation remain TikTok’s biggest blind spots. In categories like fraud and deceptively edited media, less than half of videos were caught before they got views. Scam content also lingers longer than it should, far slower than removals in areas like hate speech or violent imagery. As scammers get smarter, TikTok’s moderation systems still seem to be playing catch-up.

For Nigerian users, the takeaway is simple: the app is much safer than it was a few years ago, but there are still cracks, especially around financial scams and deepfakes. Even so, with enforcement levels rising sharply and mistaken takedowns staying relatively low, TikTok’s clean-up machine is getting more efficient. The challenge now is tackling the subtler forms of harmful content that AI doesn’t detect as easily.

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