Africell Uganda head office in Kampala. The US loaned more than $100
million to Africell to expand access to telecommunications in Africa.
PHOTO | DAILY MONITOR
African telecom firm Africell plans to spend part of a $100
million US credit line on expanding its
infrastructure and fintech services, its chief executive said on Friday.
infrastructure and fintech services, its chief executive said on Friday.
The
18-year-old company, which has 15 million subscribers across its four
African operations, secured the loan in May from the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation (OPIC), the US government’s private investment
fund.
Africell founder and chief executive Ziad Dalloul
told Reuters the money would help fund infrastructure investments for
its operations in Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia and
Sierra Leone.
He also said it would help the firm expand fintech services, such as mobile payments, micro-insurance and micro-finance.
Mobile
money payments, pioneered in Kenya, have expanded rapidly in other
African nations where many people do not have bank accounts.
Dalloul
said Africell would bid to become the fourth operator in Angola, which
was expected to reissue a tender in the next two months after the
original tender for the licence was annulled in April.
“We are looking only at markets where we can make a difference,” he said, saying this included Angola and Zimbabwe.
He
said Angola was attractive because the country’s state-owned Angola
Telecom had a large market share that could be vulnerable to a more
aggressive private operator like Africell.
“Day one, we
can just change the whole thing...drop market prices, expand into rural
areas, provide faster, better service on internet. These are the things
we know how to do. So that’s why we are keeping an eye on Angola,” he
said.
He said Africell had $300 million, separate from
the OPIC credit line, to spend on a new market like Angola within the
first year of commencing business if they secured a licence.
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