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Wireless Federation » archive for 'Africa'

MTN expects H1 earnings to rise by 14.5% (South Africa)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 6:14 am

MTN, Africa’s largest mobile operator, which operates in 21 countries of Africa and Middle East, said it’s earnings which rose by 14.5% in H1′08.
According to the firm the attributable earnings for the H1 increased between 9.5% and 14.5%.
MTN has been growing it’s subscriber base and recording about 68.21 million subscribers at the end of March’08.

   

$3bln invested by Zain in Nigerian Market

  • August 7th, 2008
  • 8:00 am

Nigeria, where Zain has invested about $3billion in the last two years. Group Corporate Communication Director for Africa, Mr. Nwanbu Wanedeva, states that forthcoming Zain/MTV Base Pan-African award coming up September in Abuja. Wanedeva further said that company  had invested $12 billion in Africa, stressing that out of this, $3 billion, the highest for any country, was invested in Nigeria. Constant change of name by the company was due to bringing in of new investors, Wanedeva added. Discussing about the poor network he said that the company was doing a lot to improve the situation, stressing that last year alone, the company erected about 120 base stations in Nigeria.

Econet Wireless rebranded as Zain in Nigeria (Nigeria)

  • August 5th, 2008
  • 10:23 am

Nigerian’s Telecommunication company which was originally known as Econet Wireless is rebranded as Zain. According to a Analyst, the company wants the recognition in the global market. Zain Nigeria Ltd Chief Executive Officer, CEO Mr Adebayo Ligali, said the decision to rebrand was informed by the company’s determination to establish a global brand which would drive efficiency across their targeted market, create brand equity and improve the shareholders. “The rebranding to Zain underlines our ambition to become a top ten global mobile telecommunications company by 2011, building on our heritage and successes in Africa and the Middle East. A strong, distinctive brand name has always been the prerequisite for any company with global aspiration.

The company aspires to make the Zain brand a top 100 global brand.The brand is part of a process that began when the Zain group bought Celtel in 2005. Since then, we have been developing a new brand and company identity which could apply to all our group markets and which would be relevant and exciting to all our customers regardless of where they live,” he further added.

However, the company is now well positioned to offer the customers more innovative products and services with best network services across Africa and the middle East, adding that the customers will now readily benefit from a respected and recognized global brand that provides them with consistent qualitative service, Ligali, said Plans to expand the comapny to all their operational networks in Africa , this will allow the customers to move across geographical borders without roaming calls surcharge and without having to pay to receive incoming calls, he added.

Zain awarded “Best Telecoms Operator in Africa”

  • July 29th, 2008
  • 1:55 pm

At the 2008 Business in Africa Awards, Zain, a subsidiary of Celtel, has won the award for Best Telecoms Operator in Africa. Zain beats a host of other opertors to win the award. The awards were aimed  at highlighting the growth and potential of the business landscape across Africa, it rewards excellence and world-class best practices across the continent.

The benefit is that it allows Celtel’s customers both prepaid and postpaid in 12 countries from East, Central and West Africa to use a seamless and borderless network service. The customers can move freely across geographic borders, making calls and sending messages (sms) at local rates and receiving incoming calls free of charge. The countries covered by Celtel’s One Network service comprise more than half of Africa’s population and stretch over an area twice the size of Europe. Celtel is the only operator in the world to offer this award-winning service.

“Zain places a huge emphasis on Africa in achieving its 2011 targets of being a top-ten global mobile operator with 110 million customers,”while receiving the award for Zain.

Alai further added, “This award is an achievement that represents our belief in the African continent, and the potential that exists. Together with our partners and customers we are committed to building the African economic dream and developing telecommunications across the continent as no other telecom company has been able to do.”

TechFaith wins phone orders in Africa (Nigeria)

  • December 18th, 2007
  • 2:47 pm

China TechFaith Wireless Communication Technology has won contracts from a Nigerian operator through its local channel and by a Kenyan operator through its local brand. The contracts are for CDMA 1X and mid-end CDMA/GSM dual-mode dual-standby feature phones. The contracts allow China TechFaith to further expand into the African market. A total of approximately 41,500 units were shipped in early December pursuant to these contracts.

   

Vodacom net profit grows 17.5%, 31.6 million customers (South Africa)

  • November 21st, 2007
  • 2:43 pm

African mobile operator Vodacom reported H1 revenues of ZAR 22.8 billion, up 17.2 percent from the year-ago period. Its net profit rose 17.5 percent to ZAR 3.7 billion versus the year-earlier period. Its EBITDA increased by 15.5 percent to ZAR 7.6 million versus a year-earlier. The total customers in South Africa increased by 15.3 percent to 23.3 million. The number of prepaid customers rose 13.5 percent to 19.8 million, while the number of contract customers increased by 27.4 percent to 3.4 million. Vodacom maintained a very low contract churn of 8.3 percent as compared to 11.0 percent in the same period of last year. Total customers including non-south African operations increased by 22.6 percent to 31.6 million.

Vodacom Tanzania’s estimated market share decreased slightly to 54 percent (30 September 2006: 55 percent). The customer base increased by 41.8 percent to 3.7 million whilst gross connections increased by 36.6 percent to 1.2 million on 30 September of this year. Vodacom Congo remained the market leader with an estimated market share of 44 percent under challenging circumstances. The growth achieved in the customer base of 56.8 percent to 3.2 million is a direct result of increased coverage in strategic areas and the implementation of an improved sales and distribution strategy. Vodacom Lesotho is well positioned to counter any competitive activity and has retained its market share of 80 percent as at 30 September of this year. The customer base of grew by 39.5 percent to 332,000. Although Vodacom’s estimated market share has grown to 38 percent compared with 33 percent on 30 September 2006 on the back of strong growth in the customer base of 55.5 percent to 1.1 million, ARPUs remained low and the annualised churn was high at 57.3 percent.

   

Nokia starts shipments of new N95 (Finland)

  • October 15th, 2007
  • 2:40 pm

Nokia has started global shipments of its new N95 handset, which boasts 8 GB of internal storage. Seen as the Finnish handset maker’s answer to the iPod, the mobile phone includes a 5 megapixel camera, built-in GPS, WLAN and HSDPA access, 2.8-inch QVGA display and a two-way slide format. It also links up with Nokia’s new range of content services such as the Nokia Music Store and N-Gage gaming platform. The device is expected to sell for EUR 560 before taxes of subsidies. In Europe and selected countries in the Middle East and Africa, the N95 will come pre-loaded with the film Spiderman 3, from Sony Pictures Entertainment. The handset also includes a Spiderman message and ringtone, wallpaper and screen saver.

   

African operations to keep Celtel brand for now (Africa)

  • September 20th, 2007
  • 1:54 pm

Kuwait-based international cellular group MTC is to continue trading under the Celtel banner in its African operations for the forseeable future. Last week the group decided to change its name to Zain, and rebranded its mobile operators in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Sudan with immediate effect. Emmanuel Otokhine, public relations manager at Celtel Nigeria, said that keeping the Celtel brand on the continent would ensure certainty and continuity, particularly in the Nigerian and Kenyan operations, which rebranded to Celtel less than twelve months ago. Celtel currently operates in 14 African countries (not including Sudan): Burkina Faso, Chad, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The group’s mobile subsidiaries in Saudi Arabia and Iraq are to be rebranded to Zain by early 2008.

   

 

 

Benin allows MTN to resume mobile phone network (Benin)

  • September 17th, 2007
  • 6:41 am

Benin’s telecommunications authority has allowed South African-listed MTN to resume its mobile phone service in the West African state after a two-month suspension over a contract dispute, the regulator said.

“The MTN Group has accepted the conditions laid out in the new fees structure,” Victor Tokpanou, Vice-President of Benin’s ATRPT telecoms authority said late on Saturday on national television. The authorisation for MTN to restart its mobile service was effective from Saturday.

Tokpanou said MTN, Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest cellphone operator, had agreed to pay the new 30 billion CFA francs fee for a 10-year operating licence demanded by the Benin authorities. This represented a 500 pct rise over the previous operator fee.
He added the settlement of the contract dispute followed talks between Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi and his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki, and also with MTN executives.

In mid-July, in a move that cut off nearly 1 million subscribers, ATRPT suspended the networks of both MTN and Atlantique Telecom, which is controlled by Emirates Telecommunications Corp. (Etisalat).

The regulator demanded they sign new contracts because it said both had changed their names and operators in Benin without its permission.

Atlantique Telecom was allowed to resume its Moov mobile service earlier this month after agreeing to pay the new operator fee.

MTN, whose Benin network was previously operated by Spacetel Benin under the Areeba brand, had 514,000 subscribers in Benin in March. Atlantique Telecom’s Moov network, previously part of the Telecel group, has around 450,000.

Benin has around 8 million people.

The country’s other operators Libercom, a subsidiary of state fixed-line company Benin Telecom, and Bell Benin, owned by local businessman Issa Salifou, had accepted the new contracts with the increased licence fees, officials said.

In August, Benin granted a mobile phone service operating permit to neighbouring Nigeria’s second biggest operator Globacom.

   

 

India becomes second largest market for Nokia (India)

  • August 27th, 2007
  • 1:06 pm

India has become the second largest market for Nokia in terms of sales in the quarter ended June. Nokia has also started exporting to 58 countries from its Sriperumbudur, Chennai manufacturing plant. The factory has reached production volumes of 60 million handsets and is exporting half of its production to 58 countries across Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Also, the Nokia Telecom Park has received an investment of USD 500 million with seven global component manufacturers likely to generate in excess of 30,000 jobs when fully functional. Nokia Siemens Networks has also recently announced its plans to invest USD 100 million in India over the next three years to develop a strong telecommunications environment in India. This investment will include setting up a proposed telecommunication equipment manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu for mobile network equipment, new offices across various cities, additional development of an existing R&D centre and expanding the Global Networks Solution Centre.