Niger Telecoms
| Niger Telecoms | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Mixed economy company |
| founding | 2016 |
| Seat |
 Niamey , Niger
|
| management | Abdou Harouna |
| Branch | telecommunications |
Niger Telecoms is a telecommunications company based in Niger .
The company goes back to the Office des Postes et Télécommunications (OPT), the state-owned office for post and telecommunications in Niger, founded in 1959. In 1997, under the aegis of Communications Minister Mariama Gamatié Bayard , the OPT was partially privatized. While the Post division remained state-owned and later operated under the name Niger Poste , the Telecommunications division was merged with the Société des Télécommunications Internationales du Niger (STIN) to form the independent Société Nigérienne des Télécommunications (Sonitel). The company was capitalized at 22.7 billion CFA francs . In 2001 51% of the Sonitel were sold to a consortium consisting of the Chinese ZTE and the Libyan LAAICO . The Nigerien state retained 34.11% of the company, while the remainder went to Nigerien private capital and Sonitel employees. The business was widely criticized in Niger's media.
The privatization of the mobile telephony market in 2004 put the ailing Sonitel in additional trouble, as its mobile telephony branch SahelCom lost significant market share to foreign providers such as Celtel . In the Internet sector, Sonitel retained its market leadership, but had to assert itself against the French Orange , which in 2007 received the first combined license for landline, mobile phone and Internet awarded to a foreign company. Sonitel's debt rose to 40 billion CFA francs. There were protests and strikes by employees over unpaid wages and poor working conditions. Finally, in 2009, Sonitel was completely nationalized again. Sonitel (for landline telephony and internet) and SahelCom (for mobile telephony and internet) became independent companies. An attempt to sell both companies to the Libyan state fund in 2011 failed because the first Libyan civil war was beginning . Sonitel had a de facto monopoly on landline connections, albeit with only 155,490 subscribers in 2014. In 2015, seven out of 15 million Nigerians had a mobile phone. Of this, 347,000 went to SahelCom, which lagged far behind the market leader Bharti Airtel from India as well as Orange and Maroc Telecom .
Telecommunications Minister Yahouza Sadissou announced the merger of Sonitel and SahelCom to form Niger Telecom on September 28, 2016. The combination of fixed line and mobile phone offers in a single national company followed the example of other countries in the region and should lead to the pooling of resources. Niger Telecom received seed capital of 23.5 billion CFA francs. On November 3, 2016, the government appointed the manager and member of parliament Abdou Harouna as the first general director of Niger Telecom .
Web links
- SahelCom website (French)
- Sonitel website (French)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Abdourahmane Idrissa, Samuel Decalo: Historical Dictionary of Niger . 4th edition. Scarecrow, Plymouth 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-6094-0 , pp. 412-413 .
- ↑ Qui est Mme BAYARD? (No longer available online.) RACINN-Hadin'Kay, August 25, 2010, formerly in the original ; Retrieved January 24, 2013 (French). ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ https://afrique.latribune.fr/africa-tech/telecoms/2018-04-23/niger-telecoms-lance-officiellement-ses-activites-commerciales-776225.html
- ^ Julien Vallet: Le gouvernement nigérien annonce le lancement de Niger Telecom. In: Jeune Afrique . September 30, 2016, accessed September 23, 2017 (French).
- ↑ Abdou Harouna: premier patron de Niger-Télécom. In: Tamtam Info. December 4, 2016, accessed on September 23, 2017 (French).
