Cameroon’s Camtel to challenge MTN, set for state-owned mobile finance service in 2025

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Cameroon Telecommunications Service (Camtel) has announced its plans to introduce a mobile financial service around 2025. As MTN and Orange currently rule telecom services in the Central African country, the state-owned operator aims to challenge their existence.

According to the agency on Thursday, the project will be unveiled once it has completed a feasibility study this year. It added that the telecom service will be called Blue Money which will be housed under its commercial unit “Blue.”

“Camtel’s mobile financial services business – Blue Money will be launched very soon. We’re finalising studies around the regulatory environment and the market to be able to deploy,” Gilbert Ngono, Director of Cooperation at Camtel said in an interview at Africa Tech in Cape Town.

Camtel LogoCamtel Logo

“This year we’re finalising that part and next year is really the year where we’re going to see an acceleration and deployment of Blue Money,” he added.

Camtel is a national telecommunications and Internet service provider in Cameroon. The telecoms company is presently building its network, including access to a CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) network; digitization of the country’s telephone exchanges; and optical fiber along the highway between Douala and Yaoundé, and between Kribi and Lolodorf.

There are 47 telephone exchanges in the company’s system. There are about 150,000 telephone lines in its cable network and its switching network. Camtel operates three satellite-to-earth stations: Bepanda, Zamengoe, and Garoua.

Like Camtel, meet other state-owned telecoms services in Africa

As the Cameroonian government seeks to establish a state-owned telecom service – Camtel – in 2025, below are some publicly-owned service providers in Africa.

Telkom Group is one of the largest ICT services providers in South Africa. The company operates in more than 38 countries across Africa. The company is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) staple for SA and is 39% state-owned. Telkom offers several internet service packages and options, from LTE to Fibre.

Another is Maroc Telecom which was established in 1998. Maroc Telecom is Morocco’s main, and also largest telecommunications company. It is a semi-public company, similar to Telkom. Morocco’s government owns 22% of the company while the Etisalat Group owns 53%. French multimedia firm Vivendi owns the rest.

Around 2016, Maroc introduced fibre optic internet into the country with speeds up to 200Mbps. Also, the company offers landline phone services, as well as mobile, fibre internet, ADSL, and 4G+.

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Ethio Telecom is headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ethio Telecom is one of the government’s big 5 groups of state-owned corporations. Alongside Ethio Telecom, it controls Ethiopian Airlines, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, and others.

The telecommunications company has been at the centre of many controversies since 2012 and has been allegedly hindering freedom of speech in the country’s online space at the order of the Ethiopian government. Ethio Telecom offers mobile, fixed-line and broadband internet.

The company, which has monopolized the telecommunications industry of the country for several years where it serves about 120 million population, is in the process of being partially privatized. The move is part of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s plans to extend investment authority to private investors for greater participation. Instead, a further 45% stake will also be available for purchase by private investors after the 10% stake.

Ethio Telecom’s monopoly of Ethopia’s telecommunication industry was halted in 2022 after a consortium led by Kenya’s Safaricom won the country’s first privatized telecom license. 

Also on the list is Safaricom. Founded in 1993, the company is a subsidiary of South Africa’s Vodacom Group. It provides a large bouquet of services and solutions from M-Pesa to mobile devices and all in between.

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The company is Kenya’s ubiquitous telecom group and enjoys a place as the uncontested leader in the country’s telecommunications sector. It owns over 90% of the market share. It is also the provider of Kenya’s fastest mobile internet connection.

Last week Safaricom experienced a shortfall in earnings following a sharp fall in net income as a result of the deprecation of the Ethiopian birr. Despite its strong customer base, Safaricom experienced a mixed ride owing largely to security, inflation, and currency challenges. 

According to a recent report by the company, half-year earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) grew by 31.9% year-on-year. On projection, full-year earnings are expected to decline by about 94 billion ($731 million) to 100 billion ($778 million) Kenyan shillings from the 103 billion to 109 billion it had last year. 

Also Read: Safaricom’s earnings fall by 17% YoY following depreciation of Ethiopian currency.

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