Kuwait’s Hits Telecom expanding into Tanzania
Kuwait’s Hits Telecom announced on Thursday it was looking to boost its presence in Africa and noted that it was currently holding discussions with service providers in both Liberia and Tanzania to share towers. It also revealed that it would launch nationwide services in both countries later this year.
Hits Telecom is looking to boost its presence in Africa (image: stock.xchng)
In a statement to Reuters news agency, Chief Executive Par Eriksson said the company also wanted to purchase another African operator during the year to increase its presence on the continent.
The company plans to invest some $100 million in Tanzania and another $40 million in Liberia, two countries where it has operational structures in place.
Eriksson said of the tower-sharing talks: “Liberia is a small number, something like 25 sites, but in Tanzania it will be hundreds of sites”.
Hits has four African mobile licenses in the Democratic Republic of Congo where a launch is expected later this year, Equatorial Guinea where it has major coverage, Liberia and Tanzania.
“In Equatorial Guinea we are more or less done. By February, we will have 96 or 97 percent coverage of the population,” Eriksson said.
“(So,) during the last half year, we have ensured we have enough funding to roll out two new operations in Liberia and then Tanzania.”
“We have one license left, DRC, which is a big country. So, this is a little bit late and we will not complete that network until 2013,” Eriksson said.
Desmond Shephard