The CEO of Safaricom Ethiopia, Anwar Soussa, has announced that operations will commence in Ethiopia by October 2022.
Under the name Global Partnership for Ethiopia (GPE), Safaricom and its partners (Vodacom Group, Sumitomo Corporation, and CDC Group) got the license to do business in Ethiopia in July 2021.
It was revealed in July this year that Safaricom would begin rolling out operations at the end of August or September. However, it was also made known that Safaricom services would roll out in spurts, with wider coverage planned by 2023.
A statement from the telco has now confirmed these events. It means that a big client pilot of Safaricom Ethiopia’s network in Fire Dawa has already started. This is a part of the intermittent network launch that we talked about before. It will get the operator ready for a full-scale launch.
“We are excited to begin our customer pilot for Safaricom Ethiopia’s network and services in Dire Dawa.” This is an important milestone as we begin opening the network to customers in order to test the end-to-end readiness of technical and commercial operations ahead of the full network launch. We thank the Government of Ethiopia, the Dire Dawa City Administration, the Ethiopian Communications Authority, community leaders, network, IT and distribution partners, and all stakeholders for all their support towards realizing this and future milestones. We will continue to share updates as we extend the network and customer pilot across other regions, towards our national launch in October 2022,” said Anwar Soussa, Chief Executive Officer, Safaricom Ethiopia.
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Dire Dawa City residents can now use Safaricom Ethiopia’s 2G, 3G, and 4G coverage. Customers can also buy Safaricom SIM cards, and they can select the ideal phone number starting with the prefix 07 as well.
The SIM cards, which come with data, phone, and SMS offers, will be sold in branded stores. They will be able to test the Safaricom network there for a month thanks to these deals, it should be noted.
Although airtime will be sold from branded stores, customers will still be able to buy data, voice, and SMS units.
Safaricom Ethiopia has announced that three stores will be open to clients for SIM purchase and registration, customer care support, and gadgets in Dire Dawa’s Kezira, Meskelegna, and Cornell regions.
Their choice of language will be supported for customer care, including Amharic, English, Afaan Oromo, and Ag-Somali.
By April 2023, Safaricom Ethiopia services will be accessible in 25 cities. (Ethio Telecoms has already begun testing 5G.) Ethio Telecoms has already started piloting 5G. Over the next ten years, Safaricom Ethiopia will invest an additional 8.5 billion USD with its partners.
The investment is expected to lead to the creation of 1.1 million new jobs for Ethiopians.
Safaricom in Ethiopia began a nationwide hiring drive in September 2021. The exercise aimed to select important leaders who would lead it toward its goals and missions. Before it was made available to the public, Safaricom also said that the process showed how much it cared about the country’s digital future.
At the end of September, Safaricom had chosen its senior management group, which included citizens of Ethiopia and Kenya. More information about them is available here. Safaricom also says that it has hired 500 people. Of those, 320 are Ethiopian.
It has now come to light that the operator will launch operations in August 2022. This is four months later than expected. Telecom services will continue to be added here and there, and coverage is set to grow in 2023.
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With the building of a $100 million data centre, Safaricom Ethiopia has made a lot of progress over the course of 2022. Since then, a second data centre has been built.
Ethiopian authorities have also changed how foreign mobile money services operate, giving M-PESA an opportunity to enter the market there as well.
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Safaricom Ethiopia is looking forward to switching on our network and services, starting with Dire Dawa in September 2022 and 24 other cities in phases across the country in the coming months. Currently, we are doing tests to ensure that Ethiopians will have a good time when we go live. We are working to fulfill our commitment to building the long-term foundations for our contribution to Ethiopia’s digital transformation and inclusion objectives to transform lives for a digital future, “said Matthew Harrison Harvey, Chief External Affairs and Regulatory Officer.