On April 29, 2019, the Senegalese National Telecommunications Company (Sonatel) announced the conclusion of an agreement that should soon give it access to the Gambian telecom market. The telecom company will acquire 91.6% of the Internet provider Xoom Wireless, in partnership with the investment company Teranga Capital which will take a minority stake in the capital of the company.

The agreements reached are, for the moment, subject to the approval of the Gambian authorities. It is only after this approval that Sonatel will be able to really invest the market.

Through this new acquisition, Sonatel continues the expansion of the French telecom group Orange in West Africa. The last such operation of the organization in the subregion dates back to 2016, in Sierra Leone. It has increased to four the number of subregional markets in which the incumbent telecommunications operator operates.

Planned investments over the coming years in The Gambia, Sonatel explains that they “will  allow people to benefit from the expertise and dynamism of the Sonatel and Orange groups in terms of innovation and development of the digital ecosystem  “. Sonatel plans to improve Internet access in The Gambia, where only 406,200 people were connected in January 2019 according to We are social and Hootsuite, out of a population of 2,200,000. That is an Internet penetration rate of 19%, slightly improved, compared to the 18% recorded in 2017.

Source: Agence Ecofin