Entries from July 2008 ↓

As reported in Comm.’s July/August issue, Kuwait-listed Hits Telecom has confirmed plans to enter the Spanish market by announcing the acquisition of a 51 per cent stake in Spanish mobile virtual network operator Metrored Movil.

Hits Telecom chairman Bahabri says his type of company represents the third-generation of operator emerging from the Middle East

The €7 million (US$10.96 million) deal will see Metrored Movil launch in September under the Hits Telecom Spain banner and operate over Vodafone Spain’s network.

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Axiom Telecom yesterday made several senior and junior employees redundant with 30 days notice, a source told Comm.

Prior to this wave of redundancies, Axiom employed 1700 people in nine countries

Axiom is the largest distributor and retailer of mobile phones in the Middle East.

The move comes as a surprise in the region’s booming economy where downsizing is almost unheard of, and even more so considering Axiom secured US$400 million in a syndicated term loan facility last month to assist its global expansion plans.

CEO of the company, Faisal Al Bannai, is intent on establishing an MVNO in the region, and last July the company launched a 50/50 venture with India’s leading retailer Pantaloon Retail, giving Axiom a footing in the world’s second largest mobile market.

Axiom has more than 500 outlets, and prior to this wave of redundancies counted 1,700 people across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, London, Egypt and India.

Ghana’s government announced that 20 per cent of Ghana Telecom’s (GT) shares, originally sold to Vodafone as part of a US$900 million deal, will now be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange instead, a Ghanaian newspaper reported.

Ghana Telecom is the incumbent operator providing fixed-line, mobile and Internet services. 

The government and Vodafone had reached an agreement last week for the sale of 70 per cent of GT to the UK cellco, with the government retaining a 30 per cent stake, but the contract faced opposition from minority parties over the exclusion of outside bidders.

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Oman’s ministry of finance has today announced that bidders interested in bidding for a 25 per cent stake in state telco Omantel will need to submit expressions of interest by July 18.

The sale will reduce the government’s shareholding to 45 per cent.

The partial sale of the Omani incumbent, 100 per cent of which is valued at US$4.4 billion (as of July 2, 2008), is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of this year.

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Libya surpassed the 100 per cent mobile penetration rate at the end of March 2008 to become the first mainland African nation to reach the mark, according to a report by The Mobile World.

Libya was one of four nations in Middle East and Africa to reach 100 per cent mobile penetration for the first time in Q108.
Image: Luca Galuzzi

Three other markets reached the milestone for the first time in the same quarter – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Reunion – the latter a small island nation in the Indian Ocean beyond Madagascar.

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