Ethiopia’s state owned telecommunications company Ethio Telecom, is now the continent’s largest mobile operator. This is according to IT Web’s report that with over 57 million mobile subscribers as at November 2017, Ethio Telecom had beat MTN Nigeria to become Africa’s largest in terms of its mobile customer base.
Ethio Telecom of Ethiopia is now the largest mobile operator in Africa in terms of subscriptions, with 57.34 million mobile subscriptions at end-2Q17. “Ethiopia is also one of the very few African countries that has not liberalised its telecoms market and introduced competition, so Ethio Telecom has a monopoly,” a sector expert was quoted to have said. The operator put its success down to an expansion drive that cost them over $1.6 billion in the last few years. The expansion they said contributed ‘an integral part in terms of customer base and infrastructure growth.’