Africa’s largest telecoms company MTN Group has revealed that the telco would consider bidding for the second Ethiopian operating licence after initially losing to Safaricom. This was made known by the company’s CEO, Ralph Mupita. According to Mupita, “We took an approach that the opportunity, as strategic as it was, needed to meet our capital allocation framework and the hurdles that we saw given the licence conditions. We were particularly focused on the lack of mobile money in the licencing regime, and there were some issues around how the telco constructs would be accommodated within Ethiopia. We certainly priced for those things and near-term risks that we saw, and we felt that the financial bid there was appropriate.”

He says that although it was disappointing that they did not win the initial bid, they may take another shot at it.

“There are views that the Ethiopian authorities will reissue the licence with mobile money, and if they do that in a relatively short period of time, we will apply our minds on the issue, we have not made a firm decision on that,” adds Ralph Mupita.

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It could be recalled that Safaricom, alongside parent company Vodafone, were awarded one operating licence by Ethiopia’s telecommunications regulator. The telco is expected to pay $850 million for the licence.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry