Airtel Kenya Ltd (commonly known as Airtel), a subsidiary of
Airtel Africa
Airtel Africa plc, commonly known as (d/b/a) Airtel, is a multinational company that provides telecommunications and mobile money services in 14 countries in Africa, primarily in East, Central and West Africa. Airtel Africa is majority owned by ...
(owned by
Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as (d/b/a) Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Currently, ...
), is the second largest
telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
s services provider in
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
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, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
, ...
after
Safaricom PLC. It has an estimated 16.2 million subscribers of the total 59.8 million subscribers in the Kenyan market equivalent to 27.2% market share. Airtel market share has been rising steadily over the last few years.
Airtel Kenya previously operated as Kencell,
Celtel
Celtel was a telecommunications company that operated in several African countries. It was founded by Sudanese-born Mo Ibrahim.
History
Originally known as "MSI Cellular Investments", the company began operating in 1998. In January 2004, the ...
, and
Zain before rebranding to Airtel in November 2010.
Its current CEO is Prashanta Das Sharma.
History
In 2010, Bharti Airtel acquired Zain Africa's business for $10.7 billion. The acquisition deal covered Zain operations in 15 countries including Kenya but excluding Sudan and Morocco. The deal increased Bharti Airtel's overall customer base to 180 million subscribers, including the 131 million subscribers it had in India in April 2010.
In the acquisition deal, Zain received $7.9 billion in cash, with Bharti Airtel assuming $1.7 billion of consolidated debt obligations.
In 2018, it was announced that Airtel Kenya was considering a merger with
Telkom Kenya
Telkom Kenya is an integrated telecommunications provider in Kenya. It was previously a part of the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC) which was the sole provider of both postal and telecommunication services. The company was ...
. Airtel Kenya backed out of the talks in June 2018.
References
{{Reflist
Telecommunications companies of Kenya