Ghana telecoms joint venture ‘set to enhance mobile financial services’

The companies said in a statement that the deal (13KB / 2-page PDF), executed through their respective subsidiaries, will create Ghana's second largest mobile operator with $300 million in revenue.

Under the terms of the joint venture, announced earlier this year, the companies said the new business would serve nearly 10 million customers, of which 5.6 million are data customers and cover “more than 80% of Ghana’s population with high speed data, providing the widest 3G coverage across the country”.

The companies said the deal will provide Ghanaian customers “with a major boost in both rural and urban network coverage – in turn translating into better voice quality, high speed data services and reinforced network stability and resilience”. Mobile financial services are also “expected to be greatly enhanced with combined agent networks and platforms”.

Telecoms expert Diane Mullenex of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: “The newly merged entity replaces Vodafone as the second largest mobile network operator in Ghana, covering more than 80% of Ghana's population.”

Mullenex said: “This combination and extensive coverage will open up opportunities for consumers and businesses throughout Ghana, especially in previously unconnected areas, as it will provide Ghanaians more affordable access to a wider network of communication and mobile financial products and services.”

The Ghana venture is the latest in a number of recent telecoms deals announced in the region.

Last August, the South African-based Vodacom Group finalised its acquisition of a 35% stake in Kenya's biggest telecoms firm, Safaricom. That came just months after pan-African telecoms operator Liquid Telecom announced plans to provide fibre network access across sub-Saharan Africa after acquiring South African communications network operator Neotel.

A report published last year by the global mobile operators' association GSMA (73-page / 7.83 MB PDF) said “sub-Saharan Africa continues to account for the majority of live mobile money services (52%)”. GSMA said growth in mobile money services in 2015 across West Africa “was dramatic”, with Ghana among those countries “contributing to the substantive regional turnaround”. “In 2015, year-on-year growth in active (mobile money) agents was 60.1%, which was twice the growth rate of any other region.”