Vietnam’s Viettel wins Cameroon mobile licence
Vietnam’s Viettel wins Cameroon mobile licence
Cameroon officials have awarded the West African nation’s third telecommunications licence to Vietnam’s Viettel.
The firm was competing against other telcos such as Bharti Airtel, Maroc Telecom and even Korea Telecom for the licence.
The announcement was made in a statement issued by Cameroon’s minister of telecommunications, Jean Pierre Biyiti Bi-Essam.
Viettel Cameroon - which is a joint venture between the Vietnamese government owned Viettel Global and Bestinver Cameroon S.A.R.L - is expected to invest $400 million in its operations in the country.
The country’s telecommunications minister said in a statement that this amount of money is required for the company to cover about “81% of the national territory when it goes operational; and will use second and third generation (2G – 3G) technologies”.
Viettel joins mobile operators such as France Telecom’s Orange and South Africa's MTN Group that are present in the country.
Cameroon, which has a population of 20 million, has a 49% mobile penetration rate, according to BuddeComm research.