Tags: Airtel

Vodafone to expand operations in South Africa

Just days after purchasing a stake in the India’s largest mobile service provider Airtel, Vodafone has released information about their plans to expand in the South African market. Vodafone is already the world’s largest mobile operator by revenue and they have now announced plans to spend up to £1.35bn ($2.4bn) to raise its stake in South Africa’s Vodacom to 50 per cent.

Vodafone currently has around 35% holding in Vodacom and if the deal goes through, it would put them on an equal footing with Telkom, which is the South Africa’s fixed-line operator. Vodacom is already the South Africa’s largest mobile operator with around 17 million customers. Interestingly, they also have an existing agreement with Telkom to use Vodacom to expand through sub-equatorial Africa.

The company is just following the growing trend where multinational corporations are now concentrating on smaller developing markets with bigger potential to make it big. They have also shown interest in expanding their stake in the Indian partners Airtel. In another similar deal, Vodafone completed a £2.3bn deal for the 79 per cent stake in Mobifon this year, which operates in Romania.

It’s not that they are only interested in expanding their operations. They are also taking care of the markets where they have had little success in. Vodafone has just announced the sale of their Swedish business to Norway’s Telenor.