Thuraya Brings People of Africa Closer
Thuraya Brings People of Africa Closer Through Low-Cost Communications
Abu Dhabi/Nairobi, October 17, 2006 – From providing crucial communications support to election officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo to meeting the mobile satellite service needs of the African Union peacekeepers in Sudan’s volatile Darfur region, Thuraya has been playing a major role in changing the way Africans communicate.
In the six years Thuraya has been operating there, the region has witnessed excellent growth in the telecom sector with the Company making rapid inroads into the market. Much of Thuraya’s success in Africa was due to the high affordability and reliability of its products and services.
For many African rural and remote communities Thuraya’s Payphones and Public Calling Offices provide the only link with the outside world while the popular handsets are mainly used by corporate clients.
The agreement to provide support for the election in the DRC was one of several important steps Thuraya took this year to increase the Company’s focus on the vast, yet untapped, African market.
They included the launching of a new tariff plan called Africa Talk, beginning of commercial services in Angola, opening of a regional office in Kenya and the inauguration of a subsidiary in Algeria.
Africa Talk offers highly competitive call charges for prepaid subscribers in 18 countries Africa. It is aimed at enabling more people to benefit from advanced satellite telecom services, and strengthening Thuraya’s position as a telecom partner in the continent.
In Angola, Thuraya is providing satellite-based solutions for mobile, rural telephony and broadband services.
“Our service launch in Angola is the latest among several recent launches in African markets that signify our focus and commitment towards Africa,” Thuraya CEO Yousuf Al Sayed said at the time.
Earlier in the year Thuraya opened a regional office in Nairobi, aimed at serving the East African market comprising Kenya, Angola, the DRC, Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania and several other countries in the region.
The Nairobi office is working as a regional operations and logistics centre for Thuarya, supporting its wide distribution chain of Service Providers and International Service Providers. Thuraya already had a strong partnership alliance in Kenya through its local Service Provider, Indigo Telecom, which offers Thuraya products in the local market.
Thuraya entered the Ethiopian market last year and appointed a Service Provider a few months ago in what is considered a major success for the Company.
“Ethiopia has some 74 million people and less than one million land lines and around a half million GSM subscribers,” said Sultan Al Ghafli, Thuraya’s Chief Commercial Officer.
Sudan is another country that has a great potential for growth. Thuraya has five Service Providers and more than 10,000 active customers there. Recently the Company signed a deal to supply payphones to the African Union for use in Darfur.
In June, the Company established Thuraya Satellite Algeria, a fully-owned subsidiary based in the capital Algiers. The new firm will allow Thuraya to work closely with the Algerian telecom sector in enhancing telecom services throughout the country.
Thuraya Satellite Algeria will serve as a new hub for the North African region that includes Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Niger and Mauritania. The choice of Algeria to host the new company showed Thuraya’s keen interest and long-term commitment towards this key market.