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Globacom, Nigeria’s second largest telecoms operator by subscriber number and market share, has inked a deal with Eutelsat of France for satellite deployment across Africa’s most populous country as it gears up for 5G services early next year. The new deal will allow for deployment of 500 Wi-Fi relay stations to far-flung rural areas, for connection to a EutelSat satellite.
Globacom’s new deal is among series of others signed recently between French and Nigerian major corporate players – a fallout of the Business France summit at Versailles in June hosted by the French President, Mr. Emmanuel Macron.
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In attendance at a private session with the French president and top-level French CEOs were six Nigerian economic heavyweights – Chairman of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote; Chairman of Globacom, Chief Mike Adenuga; Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu; Chairman of UBA, Tony Elumelu; Founder and Chairman of the Chagoury Group, Gilbert Ramez Chagoury; and Managing Director of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe.
Other deals
France’s largest hydrocarbons group Axens has won a contract to license key refinery technologies to one of Nigeria’s leading industrial conglomerates, the BUA Group. The new BUA refinery will go head-to-head with Nigeria’s other large scale refinery project, being built by the Dangote Group, notes The Africa Report.
The report adds: BUA refinery is designed to produce 200,000 barrels per day (bpd), and expected to be operational in 2024. By comparison, the Dangote refinery has capacity to produce 650,000 bpd,
Also, Access Bank successfully negotiated a French banking licence that will allow the Nigerian bank to open a full service bank in Paris, not just a representative office.
The Globacom/Eutelsat deal
The new Globacom deal with Eutelsat is expected to boost internet connectivity in urban and rural communities across Nigeria. Chairman of Globacom, Adenuga, signed on behalf of Globacom, while Eutelsat CEO, Rodolphe Belmer, signed on behalf of Eutelsat.
The French group, Vocalcom, which already manages the software for Glo telecom’s call centres in Nigeria, is hoping to open a new deal in the mobile-money sphere with Globacom.
According to Adenuga, the franchise’s relationship with the French telecoms giant has been a long and extremely beneficial one.
His words: “The genesis and bedrock of that relationship was the energy team at the Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) Paris office, led by Guillaume Leenhardt. A great deal of our early success can be attributed to the professionalism, customer orientation, and creativity of that team.”
