This New Statesman article profiles Mo Ibrahim who is the chairman of the fastest-growing mobile phone group in sub-Saharan African,Celtel.”Today Celtel has more than seven million customers, employs 3,500 staff and boasts 120,000 points of sale. While dwarfed by Vodacom and MTN, it is the only mobile network to see the poorest of the poor as its raison d’etre.Such figures leave vast room for expansion and may explain why in May the Kuwaiti mobile operator MTC bought Celtel for $3.4bn,yet left the company free to continue operating as a separate entity.Ibrahim, a pipe-smoking, compact ball of energy, aims to raise market penetration in Celtel’s target areas to 20 per cent by 2015.He enthuses over the opportunities represented by challenging countries such as poverty-stricken Ethiopia and war-scarred Angola.”Up till now everyone has focused on the cities, bypassing villages and hamlets. We want to focus on cut-off rural areas, which is why we are looking at solar energy.”The article says that “interestingly, he is sceptical about the other great change that has swept Africa in recent years: the internet. “Computers are very expensive and they need power, and that can be a problem in Africa. SMS text messaging is replacing e-mail and, more and more, phones are carrying out the functions of the computer.”
This New Statesman article profiles Mo Ibrahim who is the chairman of the fastest-growing mobile phone group in sub-Saharan African,Celtel.”Today Celtel has more than seven million customers, employs 3,500 staff and boasts 120,000 points of sale. While dwarfed by Vodacom and MTN, it is the only mobile network to see the poorest of the poor [...]
Comments
@ 04:43
I am a student of the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University)studing Political Science. I just watched your interview with the BBC. I am sure your plan is good, but I would like to think about another way of helping Africa leadership and development. Africa need a change and such changes requires leaders of insight, brilliant intellects and dashing courage to help Africa. Please get in touch.
Ivan.
@ 11:52
I would like to get in touch with with Mo Ibrahim.He and I are friends who lost touch.
@ 05:40
Hi, my name Mumbi E Museba. I am a Zambian woman aged 36, I watched Mo Ibrahim on the BBC and I thought his simplcity in expressing himself is great. I would like to find out if there is any form of scholarships for young african boys and girls because I am a mother of two boys and I would like for them to be helped with their educational needs, in whatever form even if they have to make a contribution after by working at the foundation. I shall appreciate any responses.
thank you.
@ 05:55
mr mo ibrahim or mohammed fathi ebrahim
actualy you dont know me but i think my dad was your best frnd my dad is soliman abdeen othman
he had a many times of try to contact you but i think you busy
he want only to see you “old frnd”
rememmber to be reminder
@ 08:00
hi mo and alsalamu aleekom
am ahmed mo hamad (ttc inst.,eppco tec.man.)
its good to thing of yr home africa but i think the real solution is education.not univ graduates but tech institutins in all feilds. the first important feild is teatchers who will
learn our kids discipline ownsty and self confidance etc. so when they become governers they will behave.
and to yr prize i think all african leaders are welloff 5m.