Following Ethiopian Government decision to liberalize its telecom market by partly privatizing the state owned telecom service provider – Ethio Telecom, South Africa based TMT Finance forecasts a record high growth in telecom investment in Africa in 2019.
“Ethio Telecom took a major step forward in its much-anticipated privatization last month by pre-selecting six consultancies in partnership with the World Bank,” the report said, indicating that Ethio Telecom will be split into two businesses, offering tremendous growth potential to new entrants.
The report stated that following the announcement of Ethiopian government to privatize and liberalize its telecom market, pan-African telecom operators MTN, Orange and Vodacom are among those vying to enter Ethiopian telecom market of 105 million population.
Privatizations of telecom assets are also planned for Togocom and Benin Telecom in West Africa, with consolidation investments expected in Kenya and Tunisia, according to the report.
“Meanwhile,” the report says, “Airtel has hired banks for an IPO of its entire Africa portfolio while several telcoms are bidding for Millicom’s assets. The acceleration of investment into mobile and broadband infrastructure across the region continues as operators and investors try to meet the need for data services.”
It recalled that a few weeks ago the Council of Ministers of Ethiopia has passed a bill that will allow the establishment of a new telecom competition regulatory agency. The Ethiopian Parliament is expected to approve the bill i the coming few weeks.
The producer of the report, TMT Finance, is organizing an annual conference on African telecom in Cape Town 2019 o March 28, 2019. leaders from different media and technology companies, investment banks and investors are expected to assess the latest investment opportunities at the meeting.
TMT Finance has announced that over 60 key speakers will address the event including from Vdacom, MTN, Helios Towers Africa, CSquared, Dark Fibre Africa, Convergence Partners and Seacom.
The attendants of the conference also include, Angola Cables, Standard Bank, IFC World Bank, DLA Piper, Rand Merchant Bank, WIOCC, Paix Data Centres, BCX, European Investment Bank, Investec Asset Management, GreenWish Partners and others.