Nigeria’s telecoms sector has experienced exponential growth over the past seven years, sprouting from less than one per cent teledensity in 2001 to 40 per cent by August this year. The country’s 55 million subscribers are served by five GSM operators and a fixed line incumbent, as well as several other service providers offering an array of fixed and wireless propositions. With Etisalat having launched commercial services in the country on October 24, Africa’s largest telecoms market is fast developing into one of its most competitive

Etisalat has set a target of garnering a 30 per cent share of Nigeria’s mobile market by 2011, which is ambitious given that it entered the market as a fifth mobile player behind MTN Nigeria, Zain Nigeria, Glo Mobile and M-Tel.

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The Middle East’s leading mobile operators have grown increasingly confident of their positions on a world stage, and have not been shy of detailing their goals in the short-term. With the third quarter earnings reporting period concluded, Comm. analyses how far the Middle East’s market leaders are away from achieving their stated ambitions.

Smiling all the way to the bank- Etisalat’s chairman, Mohammed Omran knows the company has deep enough pockets to fuel its growth projections

As the fortunes of communications providers in the Middle East and Africa have risen in the past four years, so too has the articulation of their ambitions going forward. Zain, Etisalat and Qtel have been amongst the most vocal of players with respect to articulating what they are aiming to achieve in the coming years, and below Comm. considers whether they are on the right path to achieving them.

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Oman’s regulator has overturned the  award of the country’s  second  fixed-line licence to the  PCCW-Awaser Oman consortium,  and instead passed  it to second mobile operator Nawras, it was announced on November 19.

CEO of Nawras Ross Cormack is  thrilled to gain access to Oman’s fixedlineand broadband market

The Telecommunications  Regulatory Authority (TRA)  had previously announced on October 25 that the consortium led by Hong Kong’s PCCW was the winning bidder.

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Navteq is a provider of comprehensive digital map data for automotive navigation systems, mobile navigation devices, Internet-based mapping applications, and government and business solutions. Last October Nokia announced a move to acquire the Chicago-based mapping company, and given the handset manufacturer’s belief that contextualisation is becoming an increasingly integral part of social and commercial interactions, the ubiquity of location-based services has never been so compelling

“There were 25 million handsets sold in Europe, Middle East and Africa, which supported global positioning systems (GPS),” says Serge Bussat, Navteq’s vice president and general manager of Consumer and Wireless Europe. “This number is forecast to rise to 79 million in 2009, showing the strong market take-up of portable location-based service services and applications,” he adds.

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Comm. goes in search of the beating heart of the Africa telecoms scene and discovers the sector has never been in better health

In this extract from a GSM Association report entitled, Mobile Investment Africa, the organisation’s senior vice president, Gabriel Solomon, considers the phenomenal expansion of the mobile telecoms sector on the continent, as well as its challenges.

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