👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Uber orders a Delivery Hero

Welcome to another week.

When news broke that MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola received $335,000 in performance-tied shares set to vest over three years, what many people probably missed is that the company’s group CEO, Ralph Mupita, received significantly more at $2.4 million.

The reactions online were, expectedly, entertaining. Many Nigerians wondered how a 9–5 job could pay that much, while others argued that corporate careers do reward patience over time. We got into this debate in last week’s Headlines by TechCabal.

At its core, the conversation often turns into a familiar comparison between corporate careers and entrepreneurship. The same debate resurfaced in December when BUA rewarded long-serving employees—emphasis on long-serving—with ₦30 billion ($22.3 million). At the time, my colleague Frank argued that loyalty pays when the employer values it. (You can hold Frank’s shirt if you disagree.)

It is also worth noting that both Toriola and Mupita have put in the years. Toriola has spent about 20 years at MTN, while Mupita has been there for nearly a decade.

I am mindful that many early-career professionals reading this, particularly Gen Z entrants into the workforce, may lean towards quicker wins when thinking about career satisfaction (not my words, see the data). Yet, the broader point holds.

My view remains: do what sets your soul on fire.

—Emmanuel

Prosus, the Naspers-backed investment company with a habit of collecting global tech assets like Thanos, has sold a 4.5% stake in German food delivery group Delivery Hero for €270 million ($318 million). The buyer is Uber, the US-based ride-hailing company, which is steadily building its position in the global food delivery race.

Prosus first bought shares in Delivery Hero in 2018, and gradually increased its interest until it became a majority shareholder. The Dutch-based investment company also holds shares in Brazilian car rental service Kovi (acquired by Nigerian-founded Moove), e-commerce company OLX, China’s Tencent, and 77 other investments across 100 countries.

The sale is not exactly a change of heart. It is compliance. Prosus is under orders from the European Commission to reduce its stake in Delivery Hero after its €4.1 billion ($4.43 billion) acquisition of Just Eat Takeaway.com in February 2025. This deal is one of several concessions required to keep regulators comfortable with how much influence Prosus can wield across Europe’s food delivery market.

Between the lines: Prosus is not exiting entirely. After the sale, it still holds a 21.8% stake in Delivery Hero and has signalled it will continue trimming that position within a set timeframe. The goal is to meet regulatory demands while extracting as much value as possible.

What is really happening? This is less about Delivery Hero and more about consolidation pressure in food delivery. Prosus, owned by South African conglomerate Naspers, now sits across iFood in Latin America, Swiggy in India, Meituan in China, and Just Eat in Europe. Regulators are watching closely and forcing it to loosen its grip where overlap or influence becomes too strong.

Uber’s move is also telling. While it already competes globally through Uber Eats, buying into Delivery Hero gives it a financial foothold in markets where it does not fully dominate operationally. It is an expansion play that benefits from compliance pressure, just not the usual boots-on-the-ground version.

Zoom out: The global food delivery market is no longer just about who delivers fastest. It is about who owns what. Stakes, cross-holdings, and regulatory trade-offs are shaping the battlefield, and Prosus is learning that building a global empire comes with instructions to sell parts of it.

Dear Nigerians, if you’ve ever run out of airtime and quickly dialled *303# to borrow extra credit to complete that call, send that urgent text message, or, in some cases, borrow data to join that Zoom call, this one will hit. 

MTN and Airtel, Nigeria’s largest telecom operators, have both temporarily suspended airtime and data borrowing services, pausing offerings that covered Nigerians during rainy days.

Airtime borrowing is in its regulation era: In July 2025, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) introduced new rules to regulate digital and non-traditional lending, including airtime advances. 

Why? According to the regulator, there have been growing customer complaints about hidden charges, unclear deductions, aggressive recovery tactics, and generally poor transparency across broader lending products. In the telecom sector, the regulator said that operators engaged in “exclusionary third-party technical arrangements in clear disobedience” to its 2018 Act, making the latest rules a sweeping provision that affected telecom firms.

MTN Nigeria and Airtel said that they suspended the products to comply with the new rules.

A valuable side hustle: MTN Nigeria reported ₦191.3 billion ($142.5 million) in fintech revenue in 2025, with a significant portion tied to airtime lending and other value-added services. For Airtel, airtime credit sits inside its other revenue bucket, which brought in about $113 million in just nine months. Pausing such service puts a sizable income on hold for both telcos.

Convenience just got a bit… less convenient: For users, airtime borrowing was the fastest workaround to getting airtime without navigating banks or going through transfer delays. Now, that option is gone (for now), and while buying airtime is still possible, it removes that instant fallback people relied on, especially during urgent moments.

Will it come back? Very likely, but only with more structure. Both MTN and Airtel say the suspension is temporary. To restart, they’ll need to meet FCCPC requirements, which will entail getting licenced or receiving permits, disclosing their pricing models, and meeting consumer protection standards before continuing these services.

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South Africa’s Absa plans to become an MVNO

Image Source: Absa

Absa, South Africa’s third-largest bank by assets, is finally stepping into telecoms with its own mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), making it the last of South Africa’s ‘Big Four’ banks—including Standard Bank, FirstRand (First National Bank), and Nedbank—to do so. FNB was the first to go this route in 2015. Standard Bank followed suit in 2018; Nedbank in August 2025.

What exactly is an MVNO? An MVNO is a mobile service that doesn’t own network infrastructure; rather, it rents capacity from existing operators like MTN or Cell C and sells it under its own brand. As an MVNO, Absa would plug into another operator’s network and focus on packaging, including pricing, bundles, and other perks.

Why banks are getting into this: Banks are following user behaviour. Customers already live on their phones with banking, payments, transfers, and bill payments. Adding mobile services means putting another layer to capture users. It also helps banks keep customers inside their ecosystem longer and create new revenue streams without heavy infrastructure costs.

Absa is late to the party, so it has work to do: There are already over 2.45 million South Africans using banking MVNOs. Being last means Absa doesn’t get the benefit of novelty. Customers already have options and are already locked into ecosystems that reward them for staying.

Absa’s real challenge lies in convincing users to jump into its ecosystem. It needs to offer something that feels meaningfully better, such as cheaper data, stronger rewards, tighter integration with banking, or a smoother experience that makes switching for consumers feel worth the stress.