Zimbabwe's Telecel Says Not Selling Stake to MTN

Zimbabwean mobile network operator, Telecel says that it is not planning to sell a stake to South Africa's MTN. There had been recent rumours that MTN was looking at buying a stake in a Zimbabwe company, and that Telecel was the lead candidate. The rumours were heightened when the company took a stand at a trade fair in the country in April.

The company is 51% owned by Orascom Telecom, with the remainder held by a consortium of local investors led by exiled James Makamba.

"As far as we (shareholders) are concerned, no one is selling anything at least for now," a shareholder told The Herald newspaper. We are actually focusing on network expansion and we are hoping to raise our subscriber base to 1.2 million by end of this year," the shareholder added.

In related news, in a statement, the company said that it has embarked on a project to upgrade its network with an aim of expanding capacity.

The scope of works has been in two phases with the first phase basically targeting Harare and Bulawayo. In these two centres, Telecel has been installing capacity by pulling out selected base stations and replacing them with higher capacity equipment. The objective has been to eliminate any form of congestion. This upgrade will offer an additional 100,000 GSM lines in the cities.

Telecel Zimbabwe is now embarking on the second phase of the expansion. Under this phase, it will be targeting selected new geographic sites to extend out geographic coverage to cover most highway corridors, service centres and rural areas in addition to all major cities, towns and commercial and mining centres.

The country currently has three mobile network operators. According to figures from the Mobile World analysts, Telecel is estimated to have ended last year with around 232,000 subscribers - representing a market share of around 15%.

On the web: The Herald - Mobile World

Posted to the site on 24th July 2009