By Adedapo Adesanya

The social messaging platform, WhatsApp, has announced that rather than users deleting chats in case of a typo, they can now make simple edits.

The edited messages will have an “edited” tag next to the time stamp to mark the change, and other users won’t be able to see the previous versions of edited messages.

The Meta-owned platform, through its chief executive officer, Mr Mark Zuckerberg, first noted the development in a Facebook post, revealing that users can now modify a message within 15 minutes of sending the message.

If users want to do this, they can press and hold on to a message and tap on the edit option to alter the message.

“We’re excited that you’ll now have more control over your chats, such as correcting misspellings or adding more context to a message. For this, within 15 minutes of sending the message, you have to tap and hold that message for a while and then select the option of ‘Edit’ from the menu,” the company said in a blog post on Monday.

This will be good for users that want to correct a simple misspelling or those that want to add extra context to a message.

“We’re excited to bring you more control over your chats. All you need to do is long-press on a sent message and choose ‘Edit’ from the menu for up to fifteen minutes after,” WhatsApp said.

As with all personal messages, media and calls, messages and the edits made are protected by end-to-end encryption.

This feature has started rolling out to users globally and will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.

Rival platform, Telegram, has always allowed for edits and users can do so for a time frame of 48 hours.

Last week, the platform announced that users can now lock and hide conversations as part of privacy measures using biometrics or a special code.

By Adedapo Adesanya

Social conversation platform, WhatsApp, has announced a new feature that will allow users to lock and hide conversations.

The new feature called Chat Lock will remove a chat thread from the app’s regular onscreen inbox and place it into a new folder that can only be opened by a password or biometric, such as facial recognition or a fingerprint.

Calling it “one more layer of security”, Meta – WhatsApp’s parent company – added that Chat Lock would protect “your most intimate conversations” and hide notifications from them.

“Over the next few months, we’re going to be adding more options for Chat Lock, including locking for companion devices, creating a custom password for your chats so that you can use a unique password different from your phone’s,” Meta wrote in a blog post.

“Locking a chat takes that thread out of the inbox and puts it behind its folder that can only be accessed with your device password or biometric, like a fingerprint. It also automatically hides the contents of that chat in notifications, too,” the past announced.

Users can lock chat by tapping the name of a one-to-one or group and selecting the lock option. To reveal these chats, users will need to slowly pull down their inbox and enter their phone password or biometric alternative.

“We think this feature will be great for people who have reason to share their phones from time to time with a family member or those moments where someone else is holding your phone at the exact moment an extra special chat arrives,” Meta added.

This is the latest feature since it fortified its mobile application with three new security features to protect the personal messages of its users.

Also, it announced that has started allowing in-app payment in Brazil last month.

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

Shareholders of Airtel Africa Plc will get a final dividend of 3.27 cents per share for the 2023 fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2023, the board has said.

This is as the company showed that it was capable of making investors smile and giving them value for their money despite the tough operating environment across its markets on the continent.

Nigeria, which is its biggest market, has been quite challenging for businesses across different sectors due to high inflation, high cost of operations, currency devaluation, and others.

Despite these headwinds, Airtel Africa increased its total customer base by 9.0 per cent to 140.0 million, as the penetration of mobile data and mobile money services continued to rise, driving a 16.9 per cent increase in data customers to 54.6 million and a 20.4 per cent increase in mobile money customers to 31.5 million.

The telco disclosed in its financial statements filed to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited that in the period under review, mobile money transaction value increased by 41.3 per cent, with Q4’23 annualised transaction value exceeding $102 billion in constant currency.

Airtel Africa said revenue in constant currency grew by 17.6 per cent in the year, with revenues growing by 11.5 per cent to $5.3 billion in reported currency from $4.7 billion in the 2022 financial year.

It said while each segment’s reported currency revenue growth was impacted by currency devaluation, they all delivered double-digit constant currency revenue growth.

The results showed that mobile service revenue grew by 16.2 per cent in constant currency, driven by voice revenue growth of 11.8 per cent to $2.5 billion from $2.4 billion and data revenue growth of 23.8 per cent to $1.8 billion from $1.5 billion, as mobile money revenue grew by 29.6 per cent in constant currency from $692 million from $553 million.

Also, its underlying EBITDA appreciated by 17.3 per cent in constant currency and 11.4 per cent in reported currency to $2.6 billion, with an underlying EBITDA margin of 49.0 per cent, reflecting the resilience of its operating model despite inflationary cost pressures, though its net profit went down to $750 million.

“Currencies across our footprint have been under pressure, and the impact from the revaluation of our foreign currency-denominated liabilities provided some headwinds in the last financial year.

“While currency devaluation is not in our control, we have plans to continue to mitigate its impact by growing our revenues at a faster pace than devaluation, with double-digit revenue growth in reported currency delivered this year and as we continue to reduce our foreign currency exposure across our balance sheet,” the chief executive of Airtel Africa, Mr Segun Ogunsanya said.