There are two MNOs in the market, Airtel and Gabon Telecom, who operate roughly equal shares of the market, with Gabon Telecom having 53% market share to Airtel’s 47%. Population coverage is overall good with just 6.5% of the population without mobile internet coverage and mobile penetration is high at 169%, although the commonality of having multiple SIMs means this it likely to be lower.
Gabon’s market is very small, but there is some investment in new tower builds. Airtel Gabon has an ongoing US$15mn network investment programme to achieve national 4G coverage, and the World Bank has signed a US$68.5mn loan for the Digital Gabon Project. Both MNOs are also deploying 200 rural sites in white zones for mobile and internet access.
Whilst the electricity grid in the main cities is okay, the grid is much less extensive in more rural areas leading to 30-35% of the country’s sites being off-grid. Energy Vision are providing ESCO services to Airtel on a fixed monthly price with no upfront capex and are working through recent disruption due to the coup.
With the failure of Helios Towers’ sale leaseback with Airtel, Energy Vision is being allowed to manage power at more core sites. The project encompasses a full solar hybrid system with CDC batteries and is in the process of being extended to cover 500 sites (of which 40% are off grid, 10% are on unreliable grid and 50% are on grid).
Energy Vision has also been awarded responsibility for all passive elements of the sites, with a view to extend this to sites on unreliable grid. Gabon Telecom and Airtel have deployed LTE, and despite comments in 2019 by the Telecom Regulator no moves have been made to roll-out 5G. 4G coverage is still largely limited to cities with rural areas still underdeveloped.
ARPUs are high for Africa, with prepaid customers at 4,903CFA (US$9.02) and postpaid 48,650CFA (US$89.46), although postpaid represents less than 2% of the market. In March 2023, Helios Towers announced it was abandoning its plans to acquire 459 towers in Gabon and Airtel Gabon’s commitment to 60 further BTS sites. Regulatory issues held up the deal last time around and it
appears that the deal will not go ahead this time either.
