Uganda to sell 60% of Utel to Rowad Capital, Liquid launches Azure stack

Some interesting news coming out of Uganda includes the Ugandan government reportedly preparing to sell a 60% stake in state-owned telecom operator, Uganda Telecommunications Corporation Limited (Utel), to Rowad Capital Commercial LLC (RCC).

Meanwhile in cloud computing news, Liquid Intelligent Technologies has also launched Microsoft Azure Stack in the East African country.

According to Bloomberg, the 60% Utel stake sale will go for an initial amount of US$225 million and the deal is scheduled to be finalized soon.

The country's Permanent Secretary of the Information, Communication, and Technology Ministry, Aminah Zawedde, said discussions with Rowad Capital started earlier this year.

The planned sale comes after the Dubai-based RCC signed a joint venture with Uganda Telecommunications Corporation Limited (UTCL), which rebranded to Utel, to enhance Uganda's telecommunications sector in December 2023.

The Ugandan finance and ICT ministries took over the assets of Utel in November 2022, when it was under receivership.

It will be interesting to see how this deal will impact the country's mobile telecommunications ecosystem.

According to statistics from market research company Omdia, a sister company of Connecting Africa, Uganda has four mobile operators: MTN Uganda, Airtel Uganda, Uganda Telecom (Utel) and Lycamobile Uganda.

Omdia reports that Utel was the third biggest telco in the country with an estimated 805,000 mobile subscribers at the end of the second quarter of 2024.

Lycamobile Uganda was the smallest with less than 82,000 mobile users around the same period.

MTN Uganda was the biggest telco with over 20.4 million mobile users while Airtel Uganda was second with nearly 18 million mobile users around the same time.

Liquid launches first Microsoft Azure Stack

Pan-African digital infrastructure provider, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, has launched its first Microsoft Azure Stack in Uganda.

Microsoft Azure Stack is a hybrid cloud platform that extends Azure services and capabilities to various environments, including data centers, edge locations, and remote offices.

The Cassava Technologies company said the achievement is an important milestone because it now allows local businesses to use cloud solutions that comply with local data regulatory regulations.

"By investing in the first Azure Stack hub in Uganda, Liquid is not only demonstrating its commitment to the country's digital transformation but also actively supporting the Uganda Digital Transformation Roadmap," the company said in a statement.

Michael Mukasa, CEO of Liquid Intelligent Technologies Uganda. (Source: Liquid Intelligent Technologies).

Michael Mukasa, CEO of Liquid Intelligent Technologies Uganda, said the Azure Stack hub in the country will be a game-changer for local businesses.

"It will provide them with cost-effective access to local cloud solutions, help them meet local data regulatory requirements, and enable them to run latency-sensitive business applications efficiently," he continued.

"This is the fifth country that Liquid has deployed Microsoft Azure Stack in Africa, which is indicative of our expertise in partnering with businesses of all sizes to digitally transform," he continued.

Liquid has implemented Azure Stacks across several African nations and introduced them in Kenya in 2019.

In October 2023, the company teamed up with a provider of carrier-neutral data center services, Wingu.Africa to launch the second Azure hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) stack in Tanzania.

Mukasa said the Azure stack will not only benefit large enterprises but also accelerate cloud adoption among the Ugandan small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through flexible adoption models.

Cassava Technologies has been expanding its operations into different business sectors on the African continent.

Earlier this month, the company launched a dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) business unit, Cassava AI.

In July, its data center business, Africa Data Centres, announced that it was expanding its data center facility in Cape Town, South Africa, to add another 6MW of IT load, effectively doubling its capacity in the city.

In March Cassava's other business unit, Liquid C2, collaborated with Google Cloud and AI company Anthropic to deliver advanced cloud and cybersecurity solutions as well as generative AI (Gen AI) capabilities to businesses across Africa.

That deal builds on a previous partnership with Google Cloud, which was announced in November 2023 at Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, South Africa.

— Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor, Connecting Africa