2022 in review: Top tech trends that defined the year

As the year 2022 is coming to end; for tech enthusiasts, it bought some significant and encouraging developments in SA, from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) licensing spectrum, Google landing its Equiano cable, the rise of super apps, Elon Musk acquiring Twitter, to metaverse becoming a trend.

Here are some of the top technology trends that defined the year 2022.

Telecoms regulator ICASA finally released the much-awaited high-demand spectrum this year. ICASA in March concluded the first high-demand spectrum auction in well over a decade.

The main auction stage comprised 58 rounds of bidding between the six bidders, which saw ICASA bag R14.4 billion from the historic process.

At the conclusion of the process, Cell C settled for the 10MHz at 3.5GHz. MTN successfully secured the 2x10MHz in 800MHz, 40MHz of 2 600MHz and 40MHz of 3 500MHz band.

Telkom picked up the 20MHz at 800MHz and 22MHz at 3.5GHz bands, Rain clinched the 20MHz at 700MHz and 20MHz at 2.6GHz

Vodacom secured spectrum portfolio, which includes 2 x 10MHz in the 700 band MHz, 1 x 80MHz in the 2 600MHz band and 1 x 10MHz in the 3 500MHz band.

One spectrum lot of 2x10MHz in the IMT800 band remains unsold and this lot will be licensed by the authority in future.

Google’s Equiano submarine internet cable finally landed on the South African shores. Announced in 2019, the subsea cable is expected to be a massive job creation machine, driven by the expansion of the region’s digital economy and peripheral sectors.

The Equiano submarine internet cable landed at Melkbosstrand north of Cape Town in August.

The cable starts in Western Europe and runs along the West Coast of Africa, between Portugal and SA, with branching units along the way that can be used to extend connectivity to additional African countries.

2022 will be remembered as the year super apps rose. A super app is as an umbrella app that offers consumers a full ecosystem of services shaped around their lifestyle needs under one integrated portal.

In SA, mobile operators like Vodacom announced the VodaPay super app. The telco is punting the super app to connect next 100 million Africans as it wades deeper into financial services.

The VodaPay super app attracted 2.2 million downloads and 1.6 million registered users in the eight months since its launch.

Big-four bank Nedbank also joined the race with its own super app, known as Avo, which has since garnered over 250 000 South African users, as the bank accelerated the use of digital solutions.

Absa, Discovery Bank, Nedbank and FNB have embraced Apple Pay, which allows users to make payments in person, in iOS apps, and on the Web using Safari.

Customers simply hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near a payment terminal to make a contactless payment.

Elon Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter in October. The Pretoria-born billionaire concluded the acquisition of the microblogging platform after squabbling for weeks with the previous shareholders.

Bickering between Twitter and Musk came after the Tesla CEO made an about turn from an initial agreement to acquire the global social networking platform, leading to a courtroom showdown.

Trial judge then ordered the matter be stayed until 28 October, to allow Musk and Twitter conclude takeover agreement reached in April. Subsequently, Musk announced on a day before the court deadline that an agreement had been reached between the parties.

The metaverse is growing, and investments in the space are bulging in South Africa, as the technology is set to unlock new opportunities for tech companies.

Dubbed the next evolution of social connection, the metaverse is loosely defined as an extensive online world where people interact via digital avatars.

In SA, this year alone, a significant number of entities ranging from telcos to Web3 consulting firms, have entered the metaverse economy.

MTN and advertising and marketing consultancy M&C Saatchi Abel become the first local firms to buy virtual real estate in Africa’s first metaverse, Africarare.

MTN bought 144 plots of virtual land, with an overall area of 12x12m. MTN’s 144 real estate plots in Africarare allows it to expand its footprint in the metaverse.

Web3 consulting firm In2IT Technologies unveiled its metaverse studio at the GovTech 2022 conference in Durban.

“Metaverse studio solves real time problems in digital environment. It establishes a company in web3. Customers can use tools and APIs to develop their own solutions. There are multiple commercialization possibilities for corporates. Metaverse is a new medium to allow corporates to engage customers in many transformative ways,” Amritesh Anand, In2IT vice president, told ITWeb.

In October, Google officially confirmed its intent to establish a new Google Cloud region in South Africa – its first on the continent.

The company said in a statement this “is the latest example of how Google is delivering on the $1 billion investment commitment made last year by the company's CEO, Sundar Pichai”.

Last year, Pichai said Google will invest $1 billion over a period of five years to support digital transformation in Africa.

Telkom subsidiary BCX penned an exclusive deal with Alibaba Cloud to bring the Chinese company’s services to the South African market.

The parties signed an exclusive distribution contract in Thailand, to grant BCX exclusive rights and authority to distribute Alibaba Cloud’s products and services in South Africa.

The entrance of Alibaba Cloud services in SA via BCX comes as multinational hyperscalers – such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure – have already established data centres in South Africa, as more organisations take their workloads to the cloud.