COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Vodacom bringing businesses onto super appSouth Africa's Vodacom Group said on Tuesday about 70 businesses had signed up or committed to the mobile operator's new digital financial services "super app" that promises to be a one-stop shop for online transactions.Last year Vodacom announced a partnership with digital payments provider Alipay to build an app that would allow consumers in South Africa to shop online, pay bills and send money to family members. Alipay is owned by Ant Financial, the financial affiliate of China's Alibaba Group Holdings.Digital financial services have become a significant part of African telecom operators' businesses after they expanded from traditional voice calls into providing data, mobile payments and other digital services.In preparation for launching, the next phase of the app, called VodaPay, is bringing merchants and developers onto the platform through what Vodacom calls Mini Programs, Chief Executive Officer Shameel Joosub told reporters.These third-party downloadable sub applications will run within the VodaPay app. About 350 jobs have been created ranging from IT, product development and operations, Joosub said. - Nampa/ReutersGoogle restores servicesMultiple users complained about an outage affecting Alphabet Inc's search engine Google as well as its streaming and email services late Monday before services were restored, according to outage monitoring website Downdetector.Platforms including Google, YouTube, and Gmail were down, with users citing issues with login and accessing the website in parts of North America, according to Downdetector.More than a thousand users were having difficulties with the search engine at one point, the outage monitoring website showed, and users were also facing issues with YouTube TV and Google Drive.Reports of Google outage on Downdetector have dropped significantly to single digits early Tuesday. The issue affecting the platforms was not immediately clear.Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment after business hours. Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from a series of sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform. - Nampa/ReutersMicrosoft, Sompo to invest US$25 mln Wejo, a British auto data startup backed by General Motors Co, said on Tuesday that Microsoft Corp and insurer Sompo Holdings Inc will invest US$25 million in the company.The investment comes as Wejo prepares to go public later this year through a reverse merger with blank-check company Virtuoso Acquisition Corp.The deal was announced last month and valued the start-up at US$800 million including debt. Microsoft and Sompo join General Motors and data analytics firm Palantir Technologies Inc as part of Wejo's private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing, which now stands at US$125 million.Manchester-based Wejo organizes data from almost 11 million vehicles connected to the internet for clients such as GM, Hyundai Motor Co and Daimler. -Nampa/ReutersToyota launches Ghana’s auto assembly plantThe launch of a Toyota assembly plant in Ghana, the second auto assembly plant in the country in less than a year, will help reduce imports of second-hand vehicles and boost export earnings, President Nana Akuffo-Addo said on Tuesday.The assembly unit, a US$7 million investment with annual production capacity of around 1 330 units, follows the launch by Volkswagen of a 5 000 unit per year capacity assembly facility in August 2020.The plants are the result of global automakers such as VW, Nissan, Toyota, Honda and Peugeot waking up to the potential of the African market, traditionally dominated by used-car sales.At the launch, Akuffo-Addo said Ghana aims to boost its auto sector and attract automakers with generous fiscal incentives to assemble and produce cars in the country."The use of foreign exchange to import cars in Ghana will be reduced, at the same time, the export of made in Ghana cars to other African markets will earn our nation much needed foreign exchange," Akuffo-Addo said.Ghana passed a law to ban the import of second-hand cars older than 10-years old from October last year but suspended the decision indefinitely after pressure from importers who feared job losses. -Nampa/ReutersLittle Engine No. 1 beat Exxon Activist investor Engine No. 1 spent roughly US$12.5 million to win three board seats at Exxon Mobil Corp, less than half its original budget, for the year's biggest and most closely watched corporate contest, people familiar with the number said.Engine No. 1 in May shocked the oil-and-gas industry when Exxon shareholders, frustrated by weak returns and the US leader's flagging attention to climate concerns, elected three of its four nominated directors to Exxon's board. Investors said the fund's small budget could become a template for low-cost proxy contests.The victory against one of America's most iconic companies is even more impressive considering Exxon's market valuation of US$265 billion, industry analysts said.Exxon had said it planned to spend US$35 million more than its usual proxy solicitation costs, but did not specify a figure. Its campaign included a website, Twitter posts, blogs, and employee forums, mailings, and television appearances. Industry experts speculated that Exxon's costs could have topped US$100 million. “Our costs for the proxy contest remain in line with our filed estimates.”- Nampa/Reuters

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