Angola Unitel

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Unitel, a company backed by Angolan and Portuguese capital, launched Angola's first mobile phone network on March 8th, 2001. The service was expected to become available to consumers in April 2001, covering the provinces of Luanda and Bengo. The Angolan government awarded the operating licenses in January 2001. The Unitel consortium was owned 25% by Portugal Telecom; 25% by Mercury, a state-owned oil company; and the remaining 50% evenly held by local partners Vidatel and Geni. A four-year investment of US$150 million was intended to offer capacity to about 150,000 subscribers. In 2002, Unitel provided a GSM 900 MHz network expansion contract for the three major provinces of Angola to Alcatel estimated at 7 million euro. In 2004, it awarded a contract to Ericsson Brasil, valued at over US$40 million, which included the introduction of GPRS technology and the expansion of Unitel's existing GSM network. Unitel hoped the project, financed through a Brazilian credit line and to be reimbursed within five years, would allow Unitel to increase its subscriber base to one million. Unitel had some 300,000 subscribers in 2003 which it increased to 541,000 subscribers by end 2004, representing a 65% share of the country's mobile phone market. The company competed against Movicel, the state-owned mobile operator with an analogue advanced mobile phone system (AMPS) and digital CDMA network, which had some 400,000 subscribers by end 2004. As of December 31st in 2005, Unitel had 1,198 thousand subscribers. Unitel's total gross operating revenues were US$445 million in 2005 and US$245 million in 2004. "Angolan mobile phone operator Unitel, 25 pct owned by Portugal's telecommunication company Portugal Telecom (PT), will invest a total of 100 mln euro ($119.8 mln) in its network expansion, it was reported on May 3, 2004. The investment will be applied in 2004." No investment info on 2005 update. Capex info in PT annual report. Capex 2011 based on PT's annual report: parent capex * subscribers PT country subsidiary / subscribers of total PT group (93m) Ibid 2012: 1.688 worldwide capex; 100.4 users worldwide