Botswana Telecom joins Vodafone’s Partner Market programme

Vodafone has expanded its presence in Africa via a new ‘Partner Market’ agreement with Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited (BTCL).

The deal will see BTCL become Vodafone’s preferred partner in Botswana.

According to Vodafone Partner Markets chief executive Stefano Gastaut, this will enable Vodafone to expand the reach of its products and services within Africa and extend its partner market footprint to 55 markets worldwide (in addition to the 26 countries where it actually owns mobile operations).

BeMOBILE, the mobile arm of BTCL, was established in 2008 and claims to have the widest network coverage in Botswana, reaching almost 90 per cent of the population. According to GSMA Intelligence it is the country’s third-largest (and smallest) mobile operator with 716,000 connections and a 21 per cent market share. Unlike its rivals MTN and Orange, it has not yet launched 3G services and instead only supports 2G networks.

Vodafone said its multinational corporate customers will benefit from the addition of Botswana to their existing contracts for international managed services, while continuing to be serviced via a single point of contact.

In November, Vodafone ramped up its sub-Saharan presence by partnering with Afrimax Group, a company that deploys TD-LTE-based networks, to cooperate around the launch of voice and data services.