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Indian and Chinese investors are making their play for Africa

Posted by Matthew Reed Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

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As the great and good of the mobile industry browsed the exhibits at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona this week, they may have overlooked a couple of watershed moments in emerging-market telecoms.

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The Middle East and Africa offer some of the best regional prospects for WiMAX

Posted by Matthew Reed Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

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The prospects for WiMAX seemed to have dimmed somewhat in the past couple of years as a result of the strong growth of HSPA, which is often seen as a rival to WiMAX, and a recession that has reduced the appetite for the spending necessary to build networks.

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Middle East operators are seeking economies of scale

Posted by Matthew Reed Monday, December 14th, 2009

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As the Middle East’s mobile markets mature, and with the impact of the recession still raw, many of the region’s operators are becoming more cost-conscious.

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African operators are focusing on data services

Posted by Matthew Reed Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

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At Informa Telecoms & Media’s Africacom conference in Cape Town earlier this month, it was apparent that major operators across the continent are looking more to data and other value-added services to stimulate future expansion, as the strong growth in mobile subscription count seen in the past few years begins to slow.

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Saudi Arabia is feeling the heat of competition

Posted by Matthew Reed Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

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Saudi Arabia remains the biggest prize in the Gulf region for telecoms operators and vendors.

Although the more-populous Iran has overtaken Saudi Arabia in terms of mobile subscription numbers, Saudi Arabia has the largest economy in the region and a substantial population, of 24.6 million.

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Confusion reigns over M&A in the Middle East and Africa

Posted by Matthew Reed Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

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Progress on the region’s big M&A deals – the prospective sale of Zain Africa or a stake in Zain; and the cash and share-swap deal between Bharti and MTN – appears to have stalled.

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Zain’s African safari could be coming to an end

Posted by Matthew Reed Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

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All good things must come to an end, and it looks as if Zain’s African adventure might be drawing to a close. There is little doubt that Zain is considering the sale of its operations in sub-Saharan Africa, or at least of a stake in those operations.

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Tougher market conditions are forcing operators in West and Central Africa to innovate

Posted by Matthew Reed Monday, June 22nd, 2009

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The telecoms market in West and Central Africa remains vibrant, but the message from last week’s West & Central Africa Com conference, organized in Abuja, Nigeria, by Informa Telecoms & Media, is that business is getting tougher for operators as a consequence of

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Could nationalism threaten telecoms globalization?

Posted by Matthew Reed Monday, June 8th, 2009

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If globalization can be defined as the lowering of barriers to the exchange between countries of goods, services and investment, as well as ideas and behaviours, then telecoms is both a vehicle for advancing globalization as well as an example of it.

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The arrival of submarine cables will transform the East African telecoms market

Posted by Matthew Reed Monday, April 13th, 2009

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East Africa currently has no submarine cable connections to the rest of the world, and as a result all international Internet connectivity in the region depends on expensive satellite services.

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Analyst

Matthew Reed is editor of Informa's Mobile Middle East & Africa Intelligence Centre.