Orange Mali (70.05% owned by Sonatel) are market leaders with an estimated 63.6% market share and 8.6m active prepaid customers. Orange Mali’s network covered 80% of the population and 38% of the country at the end of 2012 (source: www.orange.com).
Orange’s main competition comes from Sotelma’s Malitel, which reported revenue growth of 19.3% in 2012. Malitel is 51% owned by Maroc Telecom.
Pros and cons of investment in the Malian tower market
Pros
New technologies could accelerate cell site densification and generate amendment revenue: Orange launched 3G in May 2010 and announced LTE trials in Mali with a view to launching 4G services in Mali in 2014
New market entrant could seek co-locations: a third mobile network operating license was granted to Alpha Telecom, a joint venture between Planor and Monaco Telecom.
