Telecel Group CEO Moh Damush has declared that the company’s target is to become a strong two in Ghana soon, and eventually move to the number one spot.
He was speaking to journalists at the public unveiling of the Telecel Ghana brand, which was part of a series of events rolled out over a three-day period to formally announce the rebranding of Vodafone Ghana to Telecel Ghana.
According to Moh Damush, Telecel Ghana is the flagship of the Telecel Group and they intend to keep it so, adding that the company will therefore sustain its interest and investment in Ghana to ensure that it rises to the top of the market.
Here are his exact word:
We are dedicated to this country [because] the Ghana operation is our flagship and it will continue to be and that is why it will have our dedication and determination to succeed and make it a strong number two or number one player in the country.”
Context
This is not the first time a telecom CEO has declared their intention to go for the spot occupied by the dominant player in Ghana’s telecoms market, MTN Ghana. Years ago, at least two former CEOs made similar declarations but they both did not amount to much.
The first was a former Vodafone Ghana CEO, Kyle Whitehill who stated that he was going after the high-end customers of MTN Ghana with his mobile number portability strategy, and he was confident that eventually Vodafone was going to take the number one spot under his leadership. He also criticised MTN Ghana’s approach to mobile money and declared that Vodafone had the mobile money blueprint, with which they were going to topple MTN’s dominance when they roll out.
Apart from Kyle Whitehill, a former Head of Business (CEO) for the defunct Glo Ghana, Hakeem Kazeem also declared that he was going to take Glo to the number two spot in 24 months by chipping away some of MTN’s market share, and eventually topple MTN.
Many years after Whitehill and Kazeem had come and gone, MTN Ghana continues to grow even bigger and faster than they came to meet and left it. On the contrary, both Glo and Vodafone have vacated the Ghana market.
Since Whitehill and Kazeem, no telecom CEO has bothered to issue any such threats on MTN’s market position. In fact, subsequent CEOs at both Vodafone and Glo have rather openly called on the regulator to intervene and do something about the skewed telecom market structure, due to which at least four players have left the market and other potential investors refused to come in until now.
Even at the executive launch of the Telecel Ghana brand in Ghana, just days ago, the company’s first CEO, Patricia Obo-Nai called on academia to dedicate time and study Ghana’s telecom market structure and proffer some research-based solutions to correcting the grave market imbalance.
Speaking of the market imbalance, MTN Ghana was declared a significant market power (SMP) in June 2020 due to its dominance for many years. At the time of the declaration, the government stated that MTN had for many years, controlled about 75% total market share in terms of voice, SMS, data, mobile money and revenue. Three years after declaring MTN SMP, it grew market share by an additional 12%, while the smaller telcos, which were supposed to benefit from the status quo, rather lost market share significantly.
Confident declaration
So, Moh Damush’s declaration that Telecel Ghana is seeking to become the number player in the market is a very tall order indeed, given the history of the market. But he seemed very confident in the fact that, like MTN, Telecel is also an African and Africa-focused telco with a spirited dedication to investing heavily in Ghana as its flagship to deliver exciting innovations and great customer experience.
According to him, already, Telecel has over the past one year, rolled out 500 additional 4G sites in the country, which is the largest expansion in the history of the company, and has also increased retail shops from 30 to 150 within the same period, with a commitment to double the number over the next year.
I can assure you that this momentum in terms of investment will continue and even move faster in the coming year,” he stated.
Prior to the approval of the sale of Vodafone’s 70% shares to Telecel, the company assured Ghana government that it was ready to invest at least US$500 million in Ghana within the first three years.
One year is gone already and when asked about the numbers, Moh Damush said “the investment scale is still ongoing – we are still making massive investments in multi-million dollars and we will continue to investment as much as Telecel Ghana needs to become a big competitor in the Ghanaian market and to provide good quality of service for the customers.”
He is also on record as saying that Telecel Ghana will take full advantage of the various regulatory interventions such as national roaming, technology neutrality and even the coming tariff control by the National Communications Authority (NCA) to deliver great customer experience and remain a formidable competitor.
About Telecel
Telecel Group is an Africa-focused telecoms company founded in 1986 by the late Congolese businessman Miko Rwayitare. In 2017, Telecel was acquired by French Business tycoon Hugues Mulliez and his partners, Nicolas Bourg and Moh Damush, who is now the Group CEO.
Telecel operates in more than 27 countries, including Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad and now Ghana, with footprints in the UK and Spain and Gibraltar.
The company’s main stay has been fintech, e-commerce, and tech startups. It has, for the past two to three years, been investing in growing tech start-ups across Africa through its accelerator program – Africa Start-up Initiative Program (ASIP).