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Konga, Yudala May Merge

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Konga, the e-commerce giant recently acquired by Zinox Group, may merge with Yudala this month, sources close to the two companies said.

 

The merger was part of the ongoing restructuring of the company aimed at building a strong brand and attaining market leadership in the e-commerce industry.

 

However, industry watchers observed that the merger between Konga and Yudala was a potential game-changer for e-commerce in the country.

 

According to them, combined strengths of Konga and Yudala will improve consumer experience by lending more convenience to the shopping process and expand access to a wider range of products, services and solutions for Nigerians.

 

Konga, founded in 2012 by Sim Shagaya, dominated the news recently following its acquisition by the Zinox Group, after months of intense negotiation with major investors, Naspers and AB Kinnevik.

 

As part of the restructuring in the company, a new management was announced recently with the appointment of Olusiji Ijogun, a seasoned and experienced technocrat as chairman and the former Vice President of Nokia, Nick Imudia, as the chief executive officer.

 

Yudala, which was launched about two years ago, offers a retail roll-out strategy and a network of physical stores, which has helped the company reach many unserved and underserved Nigerians.

 

Commenting on a possible merger between Konga and Yudala, the Lead Partner, Infusion Lawyers, Senator Ihenyen, said he was not surprised at the move, saying the merger would have many benefits for both brands.

According to him, Yudala will benefit from Konga’s massive online subscribers to market its products while Konga will leverage Yudala’s physical stores to deliver a unique shopping experience to Nigerians.

 

He said, “Over the years, Konga has successfully created a strong brand for itself in the e-commerce space in Nigeria. With this strong brand, Konga is in a great position to leverage Yudala’s fairly distributed physical stores in Nigeria. On Yudala’s part, by merging with Konga, it’s an opportunity to also leverage Konga’s 100-thousand-strong online subscribers, giving Konga subscribers the ‘real’ shopping experience. So, I think the merger will be a win-win for both Konga and Yudala. Of course, I expect Konga to absorb the Yudala brand.”

 

Ihenyen posited that the impact of the merger on the Nigeria’s e-commerce ecosystem would be a significant one, as e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Alibaba had started opening up brick-and-mortar stores for their customers, a trend, which had not been embraced in the country.

 

He said, “Brick-and-mortar stores are relatively costly to set up, especially in a market like Nigeria where there is no even distribution of urban life. But by establishing brick-and-mortar stores, e-commerce companies can add more value by giving their thousands of subscribers the shopping experience that is beyond just receiving stuff at their doorsteps.”

 

“Millennials now want to have more than just a click. They want to drop by, taking the fun offline. In the next few years, e-commerce stores and offline stores will be the same. Online stores will increasingly become a window-shopping experience, while offline stores will be the experience centres. This is the future.”

 

 


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E-Business

Attackers Target Employees with Fake HR Updates

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Kaspersky has identified an advanced phishing campaign targeting employees with personalised emails and attached documents disguised as HR policy updates.

This campaign marks a significant escalation in phishing tactics, with attackers tailoring not only the email body, but also the attachments by addressing individual recipients, showcasing an unprecedented level of customisation. The goal was to lure the victim into entering their corporate email credentials.

The attackers likely prepared by parsing employee names to make the campaign targeted and more convincing.

The emails feature a deceptive body: a fraudulent “verified sender” badge to build trust, the recipient’s name, and an invitation to open the attached file to review remote work protocols, benefits administration and security standards. However, the whole email body is in reality just an image with no real text in it; this is done to bypass email filters.

The attached document, posing as an updated “Employee Handbook,” does not contain any actual guidelines – only a title page, a table of contents with the items that have supposedly been changed highlighted in red, a page with a QR code, supposedly for going to the full document and common instructions on how to read QR codes using a phone. The document features the victim’s name multiple times to convince that this document was created specifically for them.

If the victim scans the QR code and follows the link, they land on a fraudulent page where they are asked to enter their corporate credentials, which is what the attackers are hunting for.

“This campaign demonstrates a new level of sophistication in phishing attacks, and we may be seeing a new mailing automation mechanism that generates a separate attached document and a separate image for the email body for each recipient.

“This tactic allows to scale the attack and at the same time possibly evade traditional defenses. Organisations must prioritise advanced security measures and employee education to stay ahead of these threats,” comments Roman Dedenok, Anti-Spam Expert at Kaspersky.

 


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Temu Joins INTA to Combat Counterfeits and Elevate IP Standards Worldwide

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Temu, the global online marketplace, has joined the International Trademark Association (INTA) as a corporate member and serves on its Anti-Counterfeiting Committee.

INTA is a global association that brings together more than 6,700 organizations, representing over 37,000 trademark professionals and brand owners across 181 countries. By joining INTA, Temu deepens its commitment to building a trusted online marketplace and advancing global IP protection through broader, cross-industry collaboration.

“INTA welcomes TEMU’s willingness to engage in anticounterfeiting initiatives, including in the Association’s annual Anticounterfeiting Workshop and Online Takedown Certificate Program which serve to share best practices and connect stakeholders,” said Alastair Gray, Director of Anti-Counterfeiting, INTA. “Constructive collaboration with these efforts can contribute to the protection of intellectual property rights for INTA members and support the removal of counterfeit products from the platform which ultimately protects consumers.”

At the 2025 INTA Annual Meeting held in San Diego in May, Temu participated in the Anti-Counterfeiting Committee Roundtable, serving as a moderator to facilitate discussions among brand owners, online platforms, and government officials on emerging technologies, best practices for collaboration, and strategies to strengthen global anti-counterfeiting efforts.

“Joining INTA and serving on its Anti-Counterfeiting Committee reflects Temu’s ongoing commitment to ensuring a trustworthy online shopping experience,” said a Temu spokesperson. “We value collaboration with industry peers and stakeholders and are dedicated to advancing collective efforts in intellectual property protection.”

Temu also participates in INTA-led online workshops, including the Online Platform Notice and Takedown Certification Program, which outlines the latest procedures and best practices used by e-commerce platforms and social media companies. These workshops aim to enhance the quality and accuracy of rights-holder notices, promoting more effective takedown processes and content moderation.

Since launching in 2022, Temu has made significant investments in IP enforcement. Its measures include comprehensive seller vetting and compliance training, 24/7 algorithmic monitoring with manual review, a dedicated IP protection portal and brand registry to streamline takedown submissions, and an internal enforcement team that handles claims with speed and accuracy.


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Huawei Unveils AI Computing System to Challenge Nvidia’s Flagship Product

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China’s Huawei Technologies unveiled an AI computing system on Saturday that an industry expert said rivals Nvidia’s most advanced product, as the company aims to expand its footprint in the country’s booming AI sector.

Huawei Unveils AI Computing System to Challenge Nvidia’s Flagship Product

The CloudMatrix 384 system made its public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai, attracting a large crowd to Huawei’s booth with its showcase of cutting-edge AI innovations.

The system has attracted significant interest from the global AI community since Huawei (HWT.UL) first introduced it in April. Industry analysts see it as a direct challenger to Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72, the most advanced system-level offering currently available from the U.S. chipmaker.

In an April article, Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis, stated that Huawei now possesses AI system capabilities that could surpass those of Nvidia.

Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system.

A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions.

Huawei has become widely regarded as China’s most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions.

Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been “moving quite fast” and named the CloudMatrix as an example.

The CloudMatrix 384 system features 384 of Huawei’s latest 910C chips and, according to SemiAnalysis, surpasses Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 in certain performance metrics, despite the latter using 72 B200 chips.

SemiAnalysis attributes this performance advantage to Huawei’s strong system design, which offsets the lower power of individual chips by leveraging a greater number of them and incorporating system-level innovations.

Huawei describes the system as utilizing a “supernode” architecture that enables ultra-high-speed interconnectivity between chips.

In June, Zhang Pingan, CEO, Huawei Cloud confirmed that the CloudMatrix 384 was already operational on Huawei’s cloud platform.


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