Burkina Faso has a population of 17.2 million and is served by 3 mobile network operators: Airtel (Bharti Airtel), Telemob (Onatel) and Telecel (Planor afrique). With 11.9 million mobile subscribers, penetration stands at 69.4%. Across the three mobile operators two are dominant:
Telemob had 4.6m subscribers at y/e 2013 (38.9% market share)
Airtel had 4.4m subscribers at y/e 2013 (36.6% market share)
Telecel had 2.9m subscribers at y/e 2013 (24.5% market share)
In Burkina Faso, ARCE (Autor?te de Regul?t?on des Commun?c?t?ons Electron?ques), the national regulator, shares very limited information on its current and future position with respect to tower sharing. According to MM (Mott MacDonald) analysis, there is some inter-operator sharing in Niger, with one operator sharing less than 1 per cent of its sites and the other almost one-third.
Burkina Faso has an average mobile penetration rate for SSA – 69.4% at y/e 2013. All three mobile operators were granted a 3G license in February 2012. There were zero mobile broadband subscribers at the end of 2012 – 3G services were launched in 2013. A tender for a converged network, including 3G, was launched by ARCE on 25 April 2013. However, no decision has yet been delivered by ARCE.
In November 2013, Swiss owned YooMee Africa indicated that it may be targeting Burkina Faso for the rollout of TDD LTE Technology. It partnered with Alcatel-Lucent to expand operations in West and Central Africa through the rollout of wireless broadband services based on TDD LTE technology. However, no information has been located to suggest any availability of LTE in the country.
Sources: MM analysis, GSMA, TeleGeography, ARM
