Orange is looking at Ethiopia as the next large phone market in Africa to open to foreign owners. Ramon Fernandez, deputy chief executive of the French carrier, said in London on Friday that Orange would consider a minority stake in Ethio Telecom, the state monopoly. He said the company was also open to bidding in an auction for a new, privately held mobile licence and competing with Ethio Telecom. He expected both options to be on the table by the following year. "We'll see what's the best option for us," he said.
Fernandez said the government was working with advisers on how to let outside investors in. Interest had already been voiced by the biggest wireless groups on the continent, including MTN, Vodacom, and Orange. Orange’s Africa chief executive, Alioune Ndiaye, had been in Addis Ababa the previous week to meet officials and other possible bidders. Fernandez called Ethiopia one of the last major economies still to liberalise telecoms.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had set out plans to privatise large parts of the economy soon after he took office in April 2018. Telecoms was seen as one of the most attractive pieces, in a country of about 100 million people where data services and mobile money still had room to grow. Fernandez said a change of this size would be a long process and could fall in 2019 or 2020. "We are ready," he said. "We are just waiting for the next steps to be carried out." For subscribers, the stake or the new licence would be the first real alternative to a single state network.
Sources: Business Standard