Celtel Malawi boosts customers after fire repairs

Celtel Malawi, a unit of Kuwaiti cell phone operator MTC, boosted its subscriber base to half a million at the start of August from 350 000 before a fire damaged its network in March, it said on Wednesday.

Managing Director Charles Zouzoua told Reuters Malawi's biggest operator had repaired its network since the fire and had about 68 percent of the mobile phone market compared with some 30 percent five years ago.

Malawi has two mobile network operators, Celtel, the leading mobile phone operator, and its rival Telekom Networks Malawi (TNM), which is partly owned by the Malawian government and the country's Press Corporation Ltd conglomerate.

Zouzoua also said Celtel Malawi would get about $30 million of a $320 million loan to Celtel from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank, to help it expand its network in rural areas.

Impoverished Malawi has one of the lowest telecoms penetrations in the world with less than 1 percent of the population having access to a telephone, according to government figures.