The government initially sought to bring in two new licence holders when it approved Safaricom Ethiopia’s proposal in May 2021, but it only received one other bid. The $600m proposal from South Africa’s MTN was rejected, while Orange and E& expressed interest but didn’t end up submitting proposals. The third attempt to issue a new licence was kicked off in November 2022, alongside a peace-treaty signed between the warring factions. A third licence holder will have an uphill battle to compete with former monopoly Ethiotel, who have 70 million subscribers. The deadline for responding to the RFQ was announced as September 15 2023.

Source: Ethiopian News July 03, 2023 12:11 UTC