As competition in Rwanda’s telecommunication industry continues to intensify, the country’s second largest telecommunication operator by market share, Rwandatel, says that active mobile subscribers on its network have increased by 5 percent in the last four months.

This is 16 percent less than the company’s 600,000 target in 2009.   

Currently the telecom operator has slightly above half a million active subscribers.

In a recent interview with the Business Times Rwandatel’s Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), Francis Egbuson said that after the 3G launch they started off aggressively. The slow growth, he said is attributed to Tigo’s entry which ushered in a new wave of completion for market share.

"The entre of a new player led to a more competitive market which gave mobile users a range of choice since they had one player in the market for 10 years,” Egbuson said.

"There is an increase in the distribution of accessories on the market and service improvement.”

The operator recently announced that they are set to unveil its ‘Mobile Money’ service, partnering with the Bank of Kigali (BK) as the receiving bank.

This year, Libya African Investments Portfolio (LAP), the investment arm of the Libyan Government which owns 80 percent of Rwandatel invested $94 million (Rwf53.6 billion) to rebuild the company.

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