Ugandan tycoon and MTN's largest individual shareholder Charles Mbire says the telecom giant is open to partnering with Starlink

MTN Uganda is open to a partnership with Starlink despite the satellite internet provider posing a direct competitive threat to the South African-owned telecom's dominant position in Uganda's data market, according to board chairman Charles Mbire.

Mbire, Uganda's most prominent private investor and a significant personal shareholder in MTN Uganda, told The East African the company views Starlink's arrival as an opportunity for collaboration rather than a purely adversarial development. The statement came days after Uganda formally licensed Elon Musk's Starlink on May 15, ending a five-month regulatory standoff that had shut the satellite provider out of the country entirely.

President Yoweri Museveni personally witnessed the signing of an operational licence agreement between the Uganda Communications Commission and Starlink at State House Entebbe. The licence came with conditions: Starlink must establish a national internet gateway in Uganda, maintain a physical office in the country and hire local technical and legal staff. The requirements give the Ugandan government the oversight architecture it wanted over a technology that authorities had grown increasingly uncomfortable with during the country's January 2026 general election season.

The standoff began on January 1, 2026, when Starlink shut down all access to its network inside Uganda following a UCC directive over unlicensed operations. Uganda Revenue Authority customs officials had already been instructed in December 2025 to block all Starlink equipment imports. Months of licensing negotiations followed before the May 15 resolution.

MTN Uganda has more than 16 million mobile subscribers and operates the country's largest 4G and 5G network, primarily concentrated in urban centers. Its main competitor has been Airtel Uganda, a subsidiary of India's Bharti Airtel. Starlink's arrival introduces a third competitive force, particularly dangerous for the high-value business and institutional segment in Kampala, where subscribers can afford the premium satellite equipment and monthly fees.

Mbire's openness to partnership is not without precedent inside the MTN Group. MTN Zambia announced a deal with Starlink in March 2026 to offer Starlink's Direct to Cell service, integrating satellite connectivity into MTN's terrestrial mobile network to reach customers outside existing 4G coverage. Under that model, Starlink delivers the satellite layer and MTN provides the subscriber base, billing infrastructure and last-mile distribution. A comparable arrangement in Uganda would give MTN access to Starlink's rural coverage while giving Starlink immediate mass-market reach without building its own retail network from scratch.

Uganda's internet penetration sits at roughly 50 percent, with rural communities largely unserved by the terrestrial infrastructure MTN and Airtel have concentrated in cities. That connectivity gap is precisely where Starlink's low-earth-orbit technology has the most to offer, and it is also a market where MTN has limited existing revenue to defend. The partnership logic is straightforward on both sides.

Mbire's investment portfolio spans MTN Uganda, Invesco Uganda, Bank of Baroda Uganda, Eskom Uganda and several real estate and power generation ventures, making him one of East Africa's most diversified private investors. His public framing of Starlink as a potential partner rather than a rival reflects a reading of African telecoms that the MTN Zambia deal has already validated: the companies that try to resist technological disruption lose more ground than those that move early to absorb it.