Bharti Airtel CEO announces additional investments in connectivity in Gabon
March 28th 2024
Sunil Bharti Mittal (photo center), president and CEO of Indian telecoms group Bharti Airtel, parent company of Airtel Africa, announced additional investments to strengthen broadband connectivity in Gabon. He presented projects during an audience granted to him by Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema (photo, right), president of the Gabonese Transition, on Tuesday March 26.
Discussions included the launch of the Airtel Satellite service in Gabon and the connection of the country to a new submarine fiber optic cable. The development of Internet access in schools was also on the agenda, among other projects.
The announcement of these additional investments comes after an underwater cable cut on March 14 caused disruptions to the Internet network in several African countries. However, these disruptions did not affect Maroc Telecom’s Moov Africa subsidiaries, including Moov Africa Gabon Telecom. In reality, these companies are connected to the West Africa submarine cable developed by their parent company, explained Moov Africa Côte d’Ivoire in a press release.
The strengthening of Airtel Gabon’s terrestrial and satellite network should enable the company to retain the loyalty of its telecom subscribers and attract new ones. This will allow it to strengthen its competitiveness against its only competitor Moov Africa Gabon Telecom and increase its market share.
According to the observatory of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Posts (ARCEP) for the first quarter of 2023, Airtel controlled 48.48% of the shares in the mobile telephony segment, compared to 51.52% for Moov Africa. The latter also comes first in the Internet segment with a market share of 53%, compared to 43.1% for Airtel. The rest of the Internet market is shared between small players.
Source: Agency EcoFin
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