Djibouti - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Djibouti - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Djibouti secures additional internet connectivity

In preparation for the sale of a minority stake in Djibouti Telecom, the company recently announced increased investments in network infrastructure. The additional capacity and resilience should make services cheaper and so encourage subscriber growth. This in turn will make the company more attractive to prospective foreign buyers looking to invest in a market which has thus far been one of the very few globally wherein the incumbent telco has retained a monopoly on services.

Djibouti Telecom has also recently invested in its several international cable interests, in which it holds stakes via various consortia.

The country will benefit from Google’s Blue-Raman cable which will link Italy, Israel, and India. The Raman section will run from Jordan to Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, and Oman.

The consortium building the 10,000km Africa-1 cable expects the work to be completed by the end of 2023. The cable will initially have landing stations in Kenya, Djibouti, Pakistan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and France, with others planned for north African Mediterranean countries, as also several on the continent’s east coast running to South Africa as the cable is extended. Djibouti will also benefit from connectivity to the Africa2 cable.

With Djibouti Telecom building a third data centre to manage traffic from several cable systems, the hope is that the company can monetise its cable interests, and exploit data centre and mobile money services to develop revenue growth, and thus attract foreign investment.