Zain - best African operator

Zain Wins Prestigious Best Telecom Operator in Africa Award

Zain subsidiary, Celtel won the award for the Best Telecoms Operator in Africa at the prestigious 2008 Business in Africa Awards held in London recently, beating a host of other operators to win the award. The awards aimed at highlighting the growth and potential of the business landscape across Africa, while rewarding excellence and world-class best practices across the continent.

One of the innovations spearheaded by Celtel for which it was adjudged for the award has been its rollout of the One Network service which has had a profound impact on the African continent. The concept allows Celtel's customers both prepaid and postpaid in 12 countries from East, Central and West Africa to use a seamless and borderless network service. The customers can move freely across geographic borders, making calls and sending messages (sms) at local rates and receiving incoming calls free of charge. The countries covered by Celtel's One Network service comprise more than half of Africa's population and stretch over an area twice the size of Europe. Celtel is the only operator in the world to offer this award winning service.

This prestigious event was attended by 500 government, business, and media leaders from across Africa, Europe, Asia and the USA. The evening represented an ideal and unique opportunity to give global visibility to world-class African brands.

Collecting the award for Zain, Tito Alai, Chief Commercial Officer for Zain Group commented "Zain places a huge emphasis on Africa in achieving its 2011 targets of being a top-ten global mobile operator with 110 million customers."

Alai further added, "This award is an achievement that represents our belief in the African continent and the potential that exists. Together with our partners and customers we are committed to building the African economic dream and developing telecommunications across the continent as no other telecom company has been able to do."

The awards were co-hosted by the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) and African Business magazine. Notable VIPs such as Ephraim Inoni, Prime Minister of Cameroon; Bethuel Mosisili, Prime Minister of Lesotho; Senator Daggash, Nigeria's Minister of National Planning; Neville Isdell, Chairman of Coca Cola; and other prominent diplomats and businessmen presented the Awards to the winners in a festive and memorable African night.

Philip Sowah, the Country manager of Zain Ghana reiterated that "this award reaffirms the reasons why Zain is launching its network in Ghana- to give Ghanaians access to the top quality telecommunications services available throughout Zain Operations in Africa and the Middle East. These are exciting times for Zain Ghana as we look forward to participating in the economic growth of Ghana by making world class telecommunications services available to all. Ghanaians will soon be able to experience Zain's "one network" services as described above.