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| N. I. G. E. R. I. A
N. E. T. W. O. R. K |
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| ZOOMmobile
Now In Benin, Jos |
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ZOOMmobile,
one of Nigeria's foremost telecommunications solutions
providers, has rolled out its national voice, data and
other value-added services in two more Nigerian cities
of Benin and Jos.
With this development, ZOOMmobile now covers 25 major
Nigerian cities, and rings in more than 350 adjourning
towns and villages. While receiving the ZOOMmobile delegation
to his palace, the Oba of Benin, prayed |
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for a successful business
outing for the company in Benin, and charged the team to always
ensure that inhabitants of the city and surrounding towns and villages
enjoy first class telecommunications services on the ZOOMmobile
network.
He also enjoined the company to cultivate a mutually beneficial
business relationship with its host community by assisting in any
way it can in uplifting the living standards of the people.
Earlier in his speech, the Group Managing Director of ZOOMmobile,
Tony Okonkwo, said that his team was in the palace to pay homage
to the monarch and seek his royal blessing for a mutually beneficial
business relationship with the good people of the ancient Benin
Kingdom.
Okonkwo stated that ZOOMmobile was in Benin to alter the telecommunications
landscape for good, by providing a robust, fast, stable, effective
and affordable network that empowers people to excel in all of their
noble aspirations and endeavours.
In keeping with its Corporate Social Investment strategy of empowering
enterprising Nigerians to own their own businesses, the company
donated 50 telephone handsets and recharge cards to the Oba, for
distribution to some of his subjects, as a way of helping in the
fight to alleviate poverty in the country.
It will be recalled that ZOOMmobile re-branded recently, dropping
its former name (Reltelwireless), and launching the unique 0707
range of numbers, making it the first CDMA operator to acquire a
four-digit number prefix.
The company has also maintained leadership of the CDMA segment
of the market by having the widest coverage and subscriber base.
ZOOMmobile currently covers 22 states in Nigeria, including the
Federal Capital Territory, and has a subscriber base of more than
1.5million.
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| MTN
Subscribers Exceed 20 million In Nigeria |
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The MTN Group has announced
that it has increased its subscriber base to 80,736,000 as at 30
September 2008 across the Group's 21 operations in Africa and the
Middle East with Nigeria accounting for over 20million. This is
a 9% increase from 74,058,000 subscribers recorded at 30 June 2008.
The proportional subscriber contribution between MTN's regions
remains unchanged with that at 30 June 2008. South and East Africa
(SEA) region contributed 28% of the Group's total subscribers while
West and Central Africa (WECA) and the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA) regions contributed 44% and 28% respectively.
The SEA region increased its subscriber base by 7% for the quarter.
The South African operation contributes 72% to the SEA region's
subscribers, with its subscribers increasing 4% to 16,173,000 for
the quarter ended 30 September 2008. Postpaid net connections were
satisfactory for the quarter.
Prepaid growth was underpinned by the value proposition, MTN Zone,
which was enhanced to include off net calls and which continues
to be a success. Uganda increased its subscriber base by 16% following
the introduction of MTN Zone in late July, with approximately 2
million subscribers on this price plan at 30 September 2008.
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The WECA region increased
subscriber base by 10% for the quarter. MTN Nigeria, which contributes
56% to the WECA region's subscriber base, recorded a 9% increase
in subscriber base to 20,171,000. Aggressive network rollout
in Nigeria continued in Q3 with 524 BTSs rolled out during the
quarter. Quality of service improved significantly resulting
in the advertising ban being lifted by the Regulator. |
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In the WECA region,
MTN Zone was introduced in Ghana, Cameroon and Benin during the
period under review. Ghana rolled out 377 BTSs and increased its
subscriber base by 14% to 5,713,000. Both Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoire
increased their subscriber bases by 7% to 3,313,000 and 3,243,000
respectively.
The MENA region recorded a 10% increase in subscribers
for the quarter. This was mainly due to continued growth from the
Iran operation, which increased its subscribers by 13% to 13,139,000.
Following the substantial disconnections in Q2, subscriber growth
in Sudan has started to show an improvement with a 7% increase in
its subscribers to 2,266,000. Syria's more modest increase of 2%
is attributed to a slowdown in acquisitions during the Ramadan period.
MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer,
Phuthuma Nhleko, says: “We are satisfied with the subscriber
growth across our operations and we will continue to explore value
enhancing opportunities.”
MTN South Africa's blended ARPU increased by
1%, indicating that rising inflation has still not had an unfavourable
effect on the quantum of disposable income allocated to telecommunications.
Nigeria, Ghana, Iran and Cameroon ARPUs remain robust not withstanding
seasonal trends and increased penetration.
“Going forward, we will continue to focus
on infrastructure roll out to ensure that we take full advantage
of demand and maximize our growth potential,” concludes Nhleko.
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Intel
Launches skooolnigeria.com
As part of its WAP in Nigeria |
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Following the inauguration
of Intel's Teacher Assisted Program in Nigeria earlier this
year which enabled thousands of teachers to have PC accessibility
for the first time, Intel recently expanded its education
offering by announcing the launch of skooolnigeria.com in
conjunction with the Federal Capital Territory Authority (FCTA),
Nigeria Ministry of Education, Shell Nigeria and the Education
Trust Fund.
This launch completes the first phase of Intel's World Ahead
Program in Nigeria, which saw the implementation of Intel-powered
Classmate PCs at the Government Secondary School Jabi, Abuja
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year, and consequently
ignited a national rollout in hundreds of schools around the country
in collaboration with the government. As part of Shell's drive to
enable communities in Nigeria, Shell Nigeria will provide significant
support to the program and will continue to work with partners to
drive education and ICT enablement.
“As a result of the broadened Intel Teach Program which has
trained over 24,000 teachers in Nigeria, 300 public Nigerian schools
this year will be equipped using Intel-powered Classmate PCs, thus
taking students' learning experience to new heights,” said
Esther Odekina, former principal, Government Secondary School Jabi
Abuja.
“Enrolment at the Jabi School in Abuja has increased by 25%
as a result of the additional facilities and computer accessibility.
This goes to show the importance of the role technology plays in
education and we are pleased that Intel is raising the bar in order
to provide African students with the necessary tools to face 21st
century challenges”.
Intel, in collaboration with FCTA, launched the teacher PC ownership
scheme in Nigeria earlier this year thus enabling over 6,000 teachers
to own PCs in the first phase of the national TAPP (Teacher Assisted
PC Purchase Program). “Our goal is to set the standards for
ideal educational delivery where ICT becomes an integral tool for
everyday learning,” says David Ibhawoh, Intel Business Development
Manager.
“Governments worldwide are rapidly adopting strategies to
use the power of information and communication technologies to transform
education. This is increasing access to good education, raising
standards and student attainment and preparing students for the
21st century knowledge economy.
“We take a holistic approach to ensuring that education,
content, accessibility and connectivity work synergistically to
up-level ICT development of communities; such is the mandate of
the Intel World Ahead Program,” Ibhawoh added.
skoool.com, already launched in other African nations including
Ghana and South Africa provides localized digital education content
for both students and educators alike. Math and science modules
tailored to suit the Nigerian national curriculum are now available
on the interactive teaching platform, thereby increasing accessibility
to this content.
Additionally, Intel will roll out Intel-powered Classmate PCs,
the Intel Teach Program and skoool content to 15 more schools in
Nigeria this year. Intel also aims to reach another 16,000 teachers
in Abuja in the next few months, as part of the Intel Teach Program.
“We are proud to bring the latest education technology to
Nigeria in collaboration with Intel and are pleased to note the
interest this has generated amongst local students and teachers,”
said Alhaji Halilu Pai, Secretary of Education.
“Technology enables students to interact, communicate and
collaborate with each other, and we strongly believe that these
factors will enable them to excel on a global level. Intel's support
to local capability and capacity development is unparalleled and
we look forward to working together to create more opportunities
for the youth of Africa.”
skoool.com features great benefits to all junior and senior high
schools in the country by providing local content and international
teaching standards. The resources of skoool learning and teaching
technology are similar in each country it operates in but are populated
with local content.
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| Starcomms
Posts Impressive Results |
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Starcomms Plc, first
telecommunications company to be listed on the floor of the
Nigerian Stock Exchange and one of Nigeria's leading CDMA,
full service telecoms operator has recorded an 84 per cent
consolidated revenue growth from N14.7 billion to N27.133
billion for the nine month period ended September 2008.
Maher Qubain, CEO of Starcomms, said this was
made possible by the aggressive market strategy adopted by
the company which resulted in a 137 per cent subscriber growth
to 1.92 million while the active subscriber base rose by 142
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to 1.55 million. The
telecommunications market continues to grow rapidly in Nigeria but
declining ARPUs (average revenue per user) is the inevitable result
of deepening market penetration. Consequently, Starcomms has built
a strong foundation of quality subscribers on which to base future
growth.
Qubain stressed that broadband active customer base
also grew by 144% while coverage footprint doubled with network
extension to 19 major cities, with anticipated network coverage
of 31 cities, 20 states and 140 towns by year end. In order to facilitate
this, an expanded transmission backbone to cover 2,107Km, the largest
microwave backbone of any CDMA operator in Nigeria is already in
place.
However, the costs of subsidies on handsets and dealer
commissions based on the much higher level of subscriber acquisitions
adversely impacted core EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation
and amortization), which was N2.258 billion [US$19.3 million] which
is below forecast. Net loss after tax was (N2.149 billion), also
below forecast. Earnings will remain below forecast for the balance
of this year.
This notwithstanding, the benefit of the significant
increase in new subscribers will be felt next year, as the company
has already made much of the investments required for next year's
growth. EBITDA and Net Profit after Tax is expected to improve significantly
in the coming year as Starcomms has seen the positive impact of
scale economies, both in terms of network costs as well as in terms
of cheaper sourcing of handsets.
During 2008, Starcomms management has taken a conscious
decision to emphasize long-term growth over short-term profitability
targets as it is not in the Company's interest during a period of
such high growth to sacrifice growth opportunities for the sake
of meeting short term targets.
The management has thus remained steadfast in its
belief that long-term growth and profitability will be enhanced
by the growth strategies and tactics deployed during 2008. Starcomms,
like all high growth telecoms operators, should be regarded as a
growth stock at this stage in its development. Once maturity is
attained, capital expenditure per sub and expenses associated with
rolling out the network will fall, which will positively affect
earnings.
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