From legal to marketing, through the development of HR and infrastructure, the telecoms group optimizes its performance by relying on its two West African decision-making centers, which jointly account for 54% of its revenues on the continent and on the Middle East.
At the beginning of June in Dakar, the rag is burning between Wave, a newcomer to mobile money and Sonatel, leader of the telecoms market and an Orange subsidiary. The first, which shakes the comfortable position of the operator with an ultra-competitive offer, has just initiated an appeal with the telecoms regulator. With the aim of Sonatel once again enabling it to distribute Orange credit via its mobile application and that it practice the same pricing policy as with its other partners. The conflict that agitated the media and social networks for ten days ended with a temporary decision by the regulator in favor of Wave.
Same period, in Abidjan, Wave launches with great fanfare this same mobile money offer applying a single commission of 1% on transactions. And yet, no mediatized conflict or war of influence in the corridors of the regulator. If Orange Côte d’Ivoire (OCI) has not yet launched an offensive against the newcomer on the shores of the Ebrié lagoon, it is first of all because Mamadou Bamba, director of OCI, the country’s leading operator , has feedback from its Senegalese counterpart, Sékou Dramé. And take the time to prepare for a potential showdown.
Senegalese feedback
Given the sub-regional ambitions of the American start-up, which raised $ 200 million in early September to support its development, there is no doubt that all of Orange’s West African subsidiaries are coordinating at the time of writing these lines to offer a competitive offer and defend themselves in the regulatory field.
Supervised by the management of Orange Africa and the Middle East (OMEA) in Casablanca, which brings together the general managers of subsidiaries every week, this networking is one of the main strengths of the French group. The operator’s presence in eight of the sixteen West African countries is managed through its two decision-making centers. In Dakar with Sonatel, which manages subsidiaries in Mali, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, and houses the headquarters of Orange International Networks Infrastructures. And in Abidjan via OCI, which manages Burkina Faso, Liberia, and hosts Orange Bank Africa, the maintenance and compliance services of Orange Money as well as Mowali, the interoperability company 50% owned with MTN.
