How do you rate Uganda’s performance with MTN’s continental portfolio, both in digital adoption but also returns, compared to other African markets? Yes, as MTN, we are operating in 16 markets, of which Uganda is one of our key markets. In fact, Uganda was the second market that MTN went into in its international expansion. We started in South Africa, we went into Rwanda and quickly moved to Uganda. So, MTN Uganda has been a big part of the MTN family all this time. Uganda, in many respects, is the model operation. The macroeconomic environment has been pretty stable, the…
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MTN Group chief executive Ralph Mupita has hailed Uganda as the company’s “model operation” and confirmed that it is now MTN’s second-biggest fintech market in Africa, second only to Ghana, and well ahead of Nigeria in meaningful contribution to the Group’s digital-financial services business. Speaking to CEO East Africa Magazine’s Paul Murungi in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the sidelines of the B20 Summit, the official G20 platform for global business engagement, Mupita said Uganda’s macroeconomic stability, regulatory certainty, and forward-looking digital adoption have made the country one of MTN’s most reliable sources of fintech growth. “Uganda in many respects is…
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A milestone moment for African connectivity MTN Group has cemented its position as Africa’s leading telecommunications company, officially becoming the first African-headquartered telco to surpass 300 million subscribers. The milestone marks the successful achievement of the Group’s Ambition 2025 strategic target to serve 300 million customers across its markets. The announcement was made by MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita during the company’s annual Ambassadors Appreciation Dinner, held on October 16, 2025, in South Africa. The gathering brought together African diplomats, senior government officials, and CEOs from across MTN’s operations, alongside members of the Group Executive Committee, to celebrate…
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The structural separation of MTN MoMo Uganda, a move that will see the country’s largest mobile money business operate as an independent, Bank of Uganda–licensed fintech company is gathering significant…
Uganda’s biggest Fintech, MTN Mobile Money (MoMo), is moving out of the family home. Long treated as just another product line within the telecom’s machinery, MoMo is being carved out into a separate corporate entity—MTN New FinCo—with ambitions to scale faster, partner globally, and perhaps one day join Africa’s elusive unicorn club. It’s a shift more than a decade in the making. Launched in 2009, MoMo lived for years as a revenue-generating cog inside MTN Uganda’s telecom engine. Its financials were buried within a blended mix of voice, data, and airtime earnings. Even after the 2021 National Payment Systems Act…
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Until 2007, mobile phone subscribers had largely known voice and short message texting needs. In fact, for a long time, the mobile phone had no major use apart from making and receiving calls, and occasionally sending short text messages. However, in 2007, after 11 years of launching in 1998, MTN broke new ground with the launch of WiMAX broadband services, a cutting-edge product that would propel mobile phone users into the future. By 2007, it had been 12 years since the launch of the first mobile phone in Uganda by Celtel, and later by MTN, which launched in 1998….
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Philip Besimire is the CEO, Vodacom Tanzania, a role he has held since October 2022. In his own words, he is committed to “Meeting the needs of my employees, customers,…
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By 2005, Uganda’s telecom sector had firmly matured. With a compound annual growth rate of above 15%, it had set the stage rolling to overtake banking as one of the fastest-growing sectors. The sector also presented vast opportunities to a country whose growth had slowed in the late 2000s. Thus, it was a highly competitive sector that attracted some of the best brains, employing a mix of local and expatriate talent, who would later become the face of the telecom sector and set the stage for future growth and innovation. As Uganda marks 30 years since the launch of the…
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In the Ugandan business world, a few people epitomize Warren Buffett’s timeless advice like Charles Mbire, a quietly dominant billionaire, cofounder and Board Chairman of MTN Uganda. In 2024 alone,…
In May 2021, Bank of Uganda issued two licenses to Airtel Mobile Commerce and MTN Mobile Money to conduct various money transfer and payment services. The licenses were partly intended to implement sections of the National Payment System Act 2020, which had transferred the regulation of mobile money from the Uganda Communications Commission to the Central Bank. In the years leading up to the enactment of the National Payment System Act 2020, there had been various conversations that highlighted the risk of an unregulated digital financial system. But in all this, government had become aware of the problem that not…
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