The inaugural Africa Com Awards were staged in Cape Town last month, identifying nine winners from the continent’s telecoms sector that had shown industry-changing prowess in the past year. Comm. group editor Tawanda Chihota was one of the judges for ceremony, and exclusively details what the winners had achieved in the past year in order to walk away with their prestigious awards

Category: Best new entrant
Winner: Warid Telecom Uganda

Warid Telecom Uganda launched nationwide GSM services in  February and received strong consumer response, crossing the one million customer mark within its first nine months of commercial operation.

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Beleaguered telecoms vendor Nortel continues to fight for its survival, and is currently in the process of reviewing its stock market listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), given its depressed stock price.

The NYSE requires stocks to generally trade above US$1.00, and Nortel’s stock price has failed to do this for more than 30 consecutive days. The vendor’s current NYSE stock price is US$0.31 

In an email to Nortel staff seen by Comm., Ronald Alepian, Nortel’s vice president of corporate communications confirmed late last week that on December 10 the vendor had received notice from the NYSE that Nortel’s stock had fallen below the continued listing standards.

“In other words, the average closing price has been under US$1.00 for 30 consecutive trading days and we need to either remedy this or face the possibility of being delisted,” Alepian explained. “This is a technical trigger, and is not associated to any other news stories…Legal and finance teams are reviewing options, which could include a stock consolidation, similar to what we did in 2006. No decisions have been made and the NYSE does give us six months to work this through – we will take our time and do what is right,” he added.

Nortel stated that it would notify the NYSE within the required ten business day period that it intends to cure the deficiency.  If the average closing price does not sufficiently improve, Nortel may consider presenting a proposal to its shareholders for a consolidation of its outstanding common shares at its annual meeting planned for spring 2009. 

Last week Comm. reported how in the quarter ending September 30, Nortel endured its largest quarterly loss in seven years amounting to US$3.413 billion, from a loss of US$113 million in the previous quarter and a profit of US$27 million a year ago.

At the time of going to press on December 17, Nortel’s share price on the NYSE stood at US$0.31.

Alepian attempted to end his correspondence to rattled Nortel staff on a positive note. “I’m not blind to the challenges we are facing and the obstacles to growth, but I am also conscious of people’s ability to pool their resources, set their targets on clear goals and reach them. We’ve seen it time and time again across Nortel.”

Zain announced today the commencement of commercial services in Ghana with the launch of a 3.5G network. Zain Ghana will offer its customers high-speed Internet access and for the first time in the country, the ability to make video-calls and use rich multimedia content including sending video clips and music. Today marks the launch in Accra, the country’s capital city, and with over US$420 million invested in network infrastructure, Zain will be rolling out the network rapidly across the country.

Zain Africa CEO, Chris Gabriel offers a hand selling some of the first Zain SIMs in Ghana

The launch in Ghana brings the number of countries in which Zain’s ‘One Network’ roaming service operates to 17.  At launch, Zain customers in Ghana can access the One Network service when travelling to Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, Niger, Tanzania and Uganda with plans to be fully operational in all other ‘One Network’ countries by the end of the year.

Prior to the today’s launch, Zain Ghana undertook a pre-registration campaign allowing aspiring customers to be the first recipients of a Zain mobile number. The operation is supported by call centres that are open twenty four hours, seven days a week and offer service in English and two of the most widely spoken local languages in West Africa – Akan and Hausa.

Ghana’s incumbent mobile operators are Kasapa, MTN, One Touch (Ghana Telecom/Vodafone) and Tigo (Millicom Ghana). Western Telecom Systems (Westel), which already operates a fixed facility, is yet to launch a mobile telephone network, months after it received the country’s fifth such licence. Nigeria’s Globacom was also awarded a mobile licence earlier this year, ahead of Warid Telecom.

According to figures from the Mobile World database, the country only had 7.6 million subscribers at the end of 2007, representing a mobile penetration rate of approximately 33 per cent.

Etisalat’s chief corporate affairs officer Nasser Bin Obood believes it is time for the UAE’s telecoms regulator, TRA to allow the operator to exercise greater flexibility with respect to the setting of competitive tariffs. Given Etisalat’s incumbent position in the UAE, the telco is deemed to have significant market power and as such has its pricing plans and tariffs heavily regulated by the TRA.

“We cannot push into some of the price points that customers would like,” Bin Obood said at the GSM-3G Middle East conference in Dubai this morning. “The time has come for the incumbent to have some relief (from the regulator),” he added.

Bin Obood referred to the fact that market competitor Du had recently announced the addition of its three millionth mobile subscriber, suggesting the second operator is now of sufficient size for there to be a move to a more competitive pricing regime in the UAE.

Only last month Du announced it had made a net profit of AED 31 million (US$8.45 million) for the three months to end-September, representing its first net profit since the company started trading in February 2007 and a year ahead of the financial plan announced during the IPO.

In response to a question posed by Comm., Bin Obood said that while Du had achieved a number of financial and operational milestones ahead of schedule, Etisalat continued to be secure in its dominance of the UAE market and this is evidenced by the rise in the telco’s subscriber numbers and profitability in the years that Du has been operational.

A confluence of factors in India’s telecoms sector during 2008 has ignited a frenzy of activity that is changing the landscape irrevocably. With the licensing of 2G spectrum, preparation for the award of 3G spectrum and the floodgates having been opened with respect to foreign direct investment, 2009 and beyond is set to propel India rushing up the table of cellular penetration levels across emerging markets

Confirmation last month that Japan’s foreign investment-shy operator, NTT DoCoMo had acquired a 26 per cent stake in Indian operator Tata Teleservices (TTSL) for US$2.7 billion is arguably one of the most significant investments in India’s frantic telecoms sector. This is so, not because of the financial size of the investment or the percentage stake acquired by Japan’s top operator, but because of the calibre of the investor.

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