Progress on the region’s big M&A deals – the prospective sale of Zain Africa or a stake in Zain; and the cash and share-swap deal between Bharti and MTN – appears to have stalled. There has been such confusion in the past few days over the possible sale of a large stake in Zain to an Indo-Malaysian consortium that it is at risk of descending into a debacle.
All good things must come to an end, and it looks as if Zain’s African adventure might be drawing to a close. There is little doubt that Zain is considering the sale of its operations in sub-Saharan Africa, or at least of a stake in those operations.
The telecoms market in West and Central Africa remains vibrant, but the message from last week’s West & Central Africa Com conference, organized in Abuja, Nigeria, by Informa Telecoms & Media, is that business is getting tougher for operators as a consequence of slowing growth rates, increasing competition and falling ARPUs, and the global economic slowdown.
East Africa currently has no submarine cable connections to the rest of the world, and as a result all international Internet connectivity in the region depends on expensive satellite services.
The members of Etisalat’s international investment team must be feeling pleased with themselves.
Last week, Oman’s telecoms regulator awarded five “reseller” licenses, allowing the new licensees to launch MVNO services, subject to agreements with host operators. The regulator insists on the term “reseller” rather than MVNO, but in effect they are MVNO licenses.
In the first of a flurry of recent mobile-money-service announcements, Vodafone said last week that it would launch its M-Pesa mobile-money-transfer service in Tanzania later this month in partnership with Vodacom. Tanzania’s No. 4 operator, Zantel, responded by saying it would introduce its own mobile-money-transfer service, beating the launch of M-Pesa. Then the UAE’s Etisalat, which has a majority stake in Zantel, said it was developing an international money-transfer service with Indian operator Idea Cellular, HSBC India and Mashreq Bank.
A step in the right direction but does it go far enough?
Sharing an allowance among family members is one ...
I agree with Dan about this being a excellent read, and that QNX is not well known but sooner or ...
Excellent read with some actual facts compared to the hack journalist/bloggers on the interest. Many don't understand what QNX ...
The main issue with Telenor is that whether they made underhand payments to ge the licenses. If they did, then ...
Over The Top providers have become the staple wildcard in almost any sector set on a collision path with mobile. By and large they are very good at what they do: connecting a user with their chosen content or service by whatever means available.
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