Harare - The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) has made available a $55 million (R790.57m) debt financing facility for Allied Mobile’s African expansion bid, officials said this week, with an executive saying that the PIC was investing in the crucial communications industry.
“Communications remain an important element for the economic growth of any country. We are, therefore, happy to provide funding that seeks to unlock the economic potential of countries in which Allied Mobile Africa operates,” Daniel Matjila, the PIC’s chief executive, said on Monday. “Our funding supports our objective of investing towards development here in South Africa and the rest of the African continent,” he added.
Allied Mobile Africa said the $55m facility would help the company gear up for expansion as it strived to service the “fast-growing mobile communications market in sub-Saharan Africa”. The company offers customer support and other telecoms support services for operators and has a partnership with Bharti Airtel for its operations in Zambia.
It said growth in the telecoms market in sub-Saharan Africa would be “supported by strong demographic and economic fundamentals”, and added that it was expecting growth rates of up to 20 percent from regional markets.
Allied Mobile has operations in countries such as Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Angola and Zimbabwe. It also has a presence in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi and will now seek further expansion in both South Africa and the region.
“Allied’s objective is to be present in every country in Africa and the recent funding from the PIC will assist us in achieving this. Our geographical expansion programme is being conducted in a very cost-effective and efficient manner,” Jaqueline Cole-Courtney, the chief executive of Allied Mobile, said.
However, the company acknowledged that the regional countries in which it was seeking expansion were “at different economic and technological stages in the development cycle”, hence the need for “a tailored product offering and a strategy to address specific” local needs.
Investment in the sub-Saharan telecoms are expected to firm up in the next 10 years as companies bid to capitalise on the region’s low base and potential for further growth.
Telecoms firms were investing in data, infrastructure and network expansion, experts said.
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