There are three MNOs in Burkina Faso; with Onatel (part of the Maroc Telecom group) having 42% market share, Orange (which acquired Airtel’s opco in the country) having 44% market share and third placed, Telecel with 14%. Mobile service coverage stands at 85% with 64% 3G and 46% 4G internet coverage.
At the start of 2020 American Tower acquired Eaton Towers and all its sites within Burkina Faso. Prior to their opco being acquired by Orange, Airtel sold their towers to Eaton Towers which acquired a portfolio of nearly 700 sites on which Orange is now the anchor tenant. Omatel has the largest portfolio of towers in the country, at approximately 1,000 sites. Telecell owns around 550 towers.
American Tower has been mostly focusing on build-to-suit as well as upgrading energy systems providing power-asservice having taken over energy equipment from Airtel. Orange also reports that it leases space on just over 100 towers owned by the other MNOs whilst retaining a portfolio of around 300 sites.
In July 2018, Orange signed a ten-year ESCO agreement with Camusat’s Aktivco, and whilst the number of sites this covers has not been disclosed, TowerXchange estimate this to be around 500, including some organic growth delivered by Camusat.
Orange has contracted with US-based wireless solutions provider Vanu to deploy 170 sites on a Network-as-aService model, as well as 700 in the Ivory Coast and 200 in Liberia. Although not technically a towerco, Vanu is one of several rural specialist firms delivering offgrid ultra-rural networks for operators across Africa, alongside NuRAN and AMN.
The government has launched plans to deploy new sites to cover 1,700 identified white zones which MNOs have not covered due to lack of profitability, driven by a CFA 6.2bn (US$10.47mn) investment from Burkina Faso’s Universal Access and Service Fund.
