French businessman Stephane Richard’s Orange moves to clinch Burkinabe market share with fiber optic launch

French businessman Stephane Richard’s Orange SA has launched into the fiber optical segment of the Burkinabe market.

The French multinational recently opened its doors in Ouagadougou, Ecofina Agency reported.

It joins the French-owned Group Vivendi Africa and Office Nationale des Telecommunications as the major players now operating in Burkina Faso.

The company aims to provide individuals and businesses with fiber optical connectivity and stated that it has invested more than $555.6 million in accelerating Internet access in the country.

“In a context of digital transformation of the country, accelerated by the health crisis of COVID-19, access to optical fiber is a driver for growth and development,” Orange Burkina Faso CEO Mamadou Coulibaly said. “We have invested more than CFA300 billion in the renewal and development of new networks, especially very high-speed mobile with 4G, and fixed with fiber.”

Coulibaly hopes Orange Burkina Faso will gain a greater market share as a value-added service provider. This is because it offers a stable, weather-proof Internet connection, he said.

In the past, the Burkinabe telecom economy has been severely impacted by a lack of security.

Richard is a French multimillionaire who serves as the chairman and CEO of Orange SA.

Forbes estimates Orange SA’s market capitalization at $33 billion.

Orange SA is a telecom company that operates mobile and Internet services to multinational companies under Orange Business Services. Founded in 1794, it is the tenth-largest mobile network operator globally, with 266 million customers and over 89,000 employees in France and 59,000 in other countries.