Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani, chairman of Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has agreed to increase his company’s stake in Tunisian cellco Tunisiana beyond its current 75%. During talks earlier this week with Tunisia’s interim Prime Minister, Al Thani, who is also the governor of the Qatar central bank, agreed to reinforce Qatari investment in the country’s telecoms industry, with particular focus on developing 3G and 4G networks. In January Qtel increased its stake in Tunisiana from 50% to 75%; this is set to increase after Al Thani stated that: ‘further to our productive discussions with the Tunisian government, we have signalled our willingness to increase our stake in Tunisiana’.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Tunisiana is the largest wireless operator in the country by subscribers with 47% market share at the end of March 2011, closely followed by rival Tunicell with 46%, and far ahead of Orange Tunisia’s 7%.