Zain launches in Ghana

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.