Alex Omenye
Telecom services provider, Africell has been given a license to operate a mobile money service, Afrimoney, in Angola. The telecom was launched in April 2022 and is Angola’s fourth telecom operator.
Africell joins telecom provider, Unitel, in launching a mobile money service. According to Expansao’s report, the Banco Nacional Angola’s deputy governor, Pedro Castro e Silva, says Huawei-backed Unitel has 1.5 million customers since its inception in August 2021. There’s a huge potential of mobile money in the Central African country with 14 million Angolans having access to cell phones and half of that number being able to access the internet.
After a monopoly of more than two decades, Angola’s telecoms sector has witnessed some significant turns recently, with Unitel’s resurgence and Africell’s launch in 2022, there’s bound to be a run for mobile subscribers.
“The lack of competition and investment in the telecoms sector has meant that innovation experienced elsewhere in the region, such as customer-centric marketing, affordable data, and mobile money, have so far bypassed Angola,” Africell CEO, Ziad Dalloul said in a post-launch interview with tech media company, Restofworld.
Africell already received the license from the Banco Nacional de Angola (National Bank of Angola, or BNA) in October 2022, and it’s in a six-months testing period. The company plans to refine technical details ahead of a proposed launch in April 2023.
With 34.5 million subscribers, the Angolan market presents an opportunity for Africell for Internet services.