This decision made public Wednesday, October 10, 2018 by the regulatory authority of posts and telecommunications (ARPT) has the effect of a bomb for employees and all stakeholders in the value chain that revolved around the fourth country phone company.
Arriving in Guinea in 1993, before Areeba (now MTN Guinea), Orange Guinea and Cellcom under the name TELECEL Guinea, before being renamed Intercell Guinea, this company after more than four decades of activity has never known impose on its competitors because of the low level of investment and the lack of rigorous and ambitious leadership. It had only 1% market share in 2017 against 2% in 2015, far from the 57% of Orange Guinea, the leading operator yet arrived fourth and last position on this market.
INTERCELL had all the assets to succeed … after all these years spent in attracting the attention of the successive managers of the company INTERCEL GUINEA on its management, the Guinean authorities finally decided to put the key under the mat.
The Guinean Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and Digital Economy motivates its decision by the worrying situation that INTERCEL GUINEE has been going through since obtaining its license in 2006 and which has been translated over the years by: “Indebtedness persistent against the state, telephone operators and other service providers; A lack of investment needed to extend its 2G network to meet its obligations contained in the specifications; Negative financial results reported each year; fraudulent practices denounced by other operators; A drastic reduction in the extent of network coverage and degradation of the quality of service provided; recurring problems with the staff, source of strong social tensions “can be read in his press release.
The Guinean authorities have therefore decided to take the necessary measures, according to them, to put an end to a situation which has a negative impact on the telecommunications sector and decide on the definitive cessation of INTERCEL GUINEA’s operations on the entire territory as well as the marketing of all telecommunications products and services (SIM card sales, refills etc ..) from Tuesday, October 09, 2018, while maintaining the maintenance of subscriber communications on the INTERCEL GUINEA network exclusively for a maximum duration of thirty (30) days.
Flasback on an adventure to the taste of unfinished
Thanks to the liberalization of the airwaves in Guinea, between 2005 and 2006, Latif TALEB, founder and owner of ETI-BULL, a provider of Internet Access and Systems Integration, bought INTERCEL which was struggling to keep up with the competition from new actors recently installed in the telephony sector in Guinea and who have invested large investments to capture significant market shares.
Latif TALEB succeeds not only in acquiring a new license for INTERCEL in May 2006, but better, it will open in 2007 the capital of the company and will succeed in bringing the TEYLIUM TELECOM group of billionaire Senegalese Yérim SOW in the capital of INTERCEL Guinea .
In October 2011, another investor joined INTERCELL, which is Expresso, a subsidiary of the Sudatel group. In reality, this is a sale of the shares of the TEYLIUM TELECOM group of Yérim SOW in Intercel in favor of Sudatel. After four years of share ownership at Intercel, the Senegalese billionaire withdraws in favor of Sudanese Sudatel. TALEB still occupies the Presidency of the Board of Directors (PCA).
Despite all the reforms and prospects fed by the shareholders Intercel Guinea will never be able to compete with the Orange-MTN-Cellcom trio, although it is one of the pioneers with the Guinea telephony company (SOTELGUI) which will go bankrupt in 2012 before to be dissolved in 2017.
As SOTELGUI he 6 years old, it is a new star that has just disappeared in the constellation of the telephony sector in Guinea.
