Vodafone partners with Ghana Government and major national telecoms to extend mobile network and 3G

Vodafone has made some serious moves in the West African Republic of Ghana. Not content with buying 70% of the share of Ghana Telecommunication Company last year, Vodafone has entered a partnership with the Government of Ghana. With these deals in place, the newly named Vodafone Ghana will be making big improvements to the mobile network of the country, and has signed a massive deal with Huawei Technologies to introduce 3G services.

Vodafone Ghana is now one of the largest employers in the Ghanaian telecoms market, with 3,400 emplyees.

From the release:

David Venn, Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone Ghana, commented: “Today’s announcement is the next step in a telecommunications renaissance across Ghana. Vodafone will offer the most reliable and cost effective services in the Ghanaian market and we will set the benchmark for customer satisfaction. Our customers should expect an excellent network as the basis for these services and we are committed to delivering it. I would like to thank all Ghanaians for the welcome we have received and the tremendous interest they have shown in Vodafone since we arrived here in this market. We have also invested in the social fabric of Ghana, deploying community booths, supporting National Farmers day and helping the educational funds of a number of the traditional areas. I look forward to announcing similar initiatives in due course.”

What we think?

A huge amount of resources are being pumped into network backbone and market education in developing mobile markets. There’s a lesson here, which was highlighted by South Korean operator SK Telecom last week. SK is desperate to get out of Korea, since the potential for growth is almost nil in their saturated mobile market. Now, that’s not such a big problem in Europe or the US. Mobile telephony and mobile Internet have a long way to grow here… but that growth is SLOW right now. Explosive growth potential exists in developing markets, so that’s where a lot of funding is going to go to from the big operators.