Two major bids have been submitted to operate in Ethiopia – one from MTN Group and the other from a Vodafone-led consortium. Ethiopia will take several days to review the technical proposal and then open the process up for financial bids.
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According to Brook Taye, an advisor in the Ethiopian ministry, says the country always wanted “quality providers and this is what we received. These are two African giants — the Vodacom consortium and MTN — either one or two of the operators will get a licence in Ethiopia.”
“Ethiopia provides the largest telecoms and digital services growth opportunity in Africa over the medium term and fits into our pan-African focus and platform strategy. We are being guided by our capital allocation framework in our assessment of this opportunity,” said MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita in a statement.
Ethiopia wants to attract more foreign investment in the country, specifically in the telecoms and technology industries. The government wants to award two full-service telecoms licenses in the process, as it approaches foreign investment as a means for domestic infrastructure growth.
