• MOST READ

• LATEST NEWS

When revenues are under threat, operators need to look for new treasure in unlikely places, but the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), embroiled in one of the world's bitterest civil wars, seems less likely than most. This hasn't stopped two international operators expressing interest in the country this week, as part of an intensified wave of expansion into the sub-Saharan region.

These are Millicom International, which has just added a license in DRC's neighor Rwanda to its collection, and France Telecom, which said this week that it had four African acquisitions under consideration as it looks to create a pan-continental business. This is part of a race to create multinational empires based on cross-border roaming deals.

The main contenders are likely to be France Telecom/Orange and Vodafone from Europe, Zain and Orascom from the Middle East, and locally based MTN, plus diversified player Millicom, which is based in Luxemburg but operates only in developing markets. France Telecom has made a strong start, and is active in 15 countries in Africa. Now Marc Rennard - executive VP at France Telecom and head of Africa, Middle East and Asia operation - has confirmed that the company hopes to conclude four further deals by January, and said Orange has budgeted $1bn for expansion in Africa in 2009. Rennard did not specify which countries he was eyeing, but selected DRC for special mention, saying it was attractive because it has "a lot of people with low penetration".

Millicom last week acquired the third mobile license for next-door (and almost equally troubled) Rwanda and now has eight African subsidiaries including Tanzania and DRC.

Vodafone is also looking to balance slowdown in its core markets with expansion in developing economies and recently gained control of its Vodacom joint venture in South Africa, and of an operator in Ghana. This week CEO Vittorio Colao told a Morgan Stanley conference in Spain that Nigeria was next on his wishlist because of its rapidly growing telecoms base and its large and youthful population.

Nigeria is a country where pan-African group MTN is strong, and the company is showing the way forward in something that will be essential to success for large players - cross-border roaming. Zain leapt earlier into offering such services in its African territories, but MTN now says it will introduce roaming across all its 21 Africa/Middle East markets by mid-2009. The new service, called OneWorld, will allow MTN subscribers to receive free incoming calls while using the participating networks.

Finally, Etisalat says it has a $3bn war chest to fund acquisitions in Africa/Middle East, and is hopeful of some bargains in the current economic climate.

Related Stories

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first to add a comment!

Digital Money: The Convergence of Contactless Card and Mobile Payments

This report examines the emergence of digital money from the perspective of the convergence of card-based proximity payments to the...

Cloudbooks: Market Analysis and Forecasts
This report is based on interviews with device OEMs, retailers and resellers and provides a comprehensive analysis of the new cloudbook...