France Telecom expects to boost its revenue from emerging markets in Africa, the Middle East and Asia to 20-25 percent of the total from the current 14-15 percent, Chief Executive Didier Lombard said on April 15.
In Kenya to visit the company's latest foreign acquisition, Telkom Kenya, Lombard said he expected to replicate earlier successes on the African continent by turning around the loss-making state-owned landline and mobile operator.
France Telecom made a winning $390 million bid in November for a 51 percent stake in the company, which had already laid off thousands of workers and launched a CDMA wireless network to make itself more attractive to suitors.
Kenya's government retains the remainder, and both are expected to prepare the company for an IPO in three to five years' time. France Telecom has 33 million customers across 16 countries in the Middle East and Africa and is trying to get into Vietnam, where it is bidding for a stake of state-owned MobiFone.
"Our target is 20-25 percent of revenue from fast-growing markets," he said, up from a present 14-15 percent. Half of its total revenues come from France. In June, Lombard said France Telecom will roll out new satellite bandwidth to boost speed for its Kenyan network. The country now relies on costly, slow satellite Internet links that businesses say hurts economic growth.
France Telecom is part of one of three efforts to lay an undersea cable to boost speeds and lower costs. Lombard said he expects that to be operational in the second half of 2009.
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