Telecoms & IT

Ghana has been successful in increasing penetration beyond the regional average. Having reached 100% by the end of 2012, penetration figures touched 102.7% as of February 2013 – figures that are well above the 53% norm for African countries and even the developing world average of 89%. However, average revenue per user is beginning to fall as penetration rises, prompting operators to increasingly focus on selling data, providing value-added services and lowering infrastructure costs. With six operators active, the telecoms market is quite competitive, and this has generated a host of ancillary benefits for the country. Ghana’s stable investment framework, combined with a strong education system, rising per capita income levels and increasing bandwidth capacity mean the nation offers sizeable opportunities in ICT.. The country has benefitted from improved networking infrastructure, by both the public and private sector. These sorts of investments will have significant knock-on effects beyond increasing access. In the meantime, Ghana’s IT sector will be driven by state spending on its e-government programmes such as the Eastern Corridor project. In the medium term, the private sector will begin to play a larger role in the development of the industry as more of the nation’s businesses begin to follow the government’s lead and move online. This chapter contains a roundtable with Phillip Sowah, Managing Director, Airtel; Michael Ikpoki, Former CEO, MTN; Adil El Youssefi, CEO, Tigo; and Kyle Whitehill, Former CEO, Vodafone.