Telecom
CNN’s Connecting Africa Explores Africa’s Telecommunications Industry
In the latest episode of Connecting Africa, CNN International’s Eleni Giokos explores how Africa’s telecommunications industry is transforming business and gearing up for a more interconnected continent.
Giokos interviews the CEOs of several major telecommunications companies and sees how their products are helping traders across Africa.
First, Giokos meets Ralph Mupita, President and CEO of the MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile network. Mupita says that investment in the telecommunications industry is only going to increase in the years ahead, “We’re going to spend approximately $10 billion over the next five years to ensure that Africa has the infrastructure to power its growth.”
The African Continental Free Trade Area agreement has opened up trade across the continent and across many areas of industry. The telecommunications sector is a key part of this and Mupita discusses why, “I would argue that it’s not possible that we get the kind of growth that is anticipated under the agreement without the telecommunications sector.”
Looking to the future, MTN is hoping to harness 5G technology across Africa. Mupita speaks about his goals, “5G is coming to Africa. We’re not going to get left behind.
“And as you start thinking about future technologies and how they can drive African growth, we will be right there as MTN for sure, and looking at how these technologies can be harnessed to drive socioeconomic progress in the various countries that we operate in.”
Next, Giokos visits Vodacom, the second most valuable brand in Africa. Vodacom executives are thinking big after a 40% jump in mobile traffic during the pandemic. Shameel Joosub, Group CEO of Vodacom, talks about their new financial services ‘super-app’ VodaPay, “It’s creating the opportunity for you to trade way beyond your geographical area.
“Before, if you had a physical store, you were limited to a certain geography. What this does is it opens it up, firstly within their broader country, but also there’s no reason why someone sitting in Nigeria cannot supply someone in Kenya. And moving into this free trade environment just allows companies to trade across multiples geographies.”
East Africa is home to one of the world’s leading mobile money platforms M-Pesa. It was pioneered by East Africa’s largest telco Safaricom and is now co-owned by Vodacom. Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom CEO says that he believes M-Pesa has the potential to become Africa’s leading mobile money platform.
He tells Giokos about how the platform is facilitating cross-border trade, “We have started to sign contracts with companies such as Visa to create interoperability and also to enable trade. We also need to make sure that we reduce the cost, the cross-border costs, of interacting.”
Undersea cables connect Africa to the internet. The Main One cable stretches from Portugal to West Africa with landings along the route in Dakar, Abidjan, Accra and Lagos. Main One is a broadband infrastructure company providing telecoms services and network solutions across West Africa.
Founder Funke Opeke describes the importance of their infrastructure work, “When you look at internet penetration in our region, it was hovering in the 10% range when we started. Today, it’s 40% and growing, so clearly a lot more eyeballs on the internet. The big players are all here. The global tech giants want to be in Nigeria.”
Giokos also meets Sokowatch Group CEO Daniel Yu to explore how Africa’s informal retail sector is becoming digitised. The tech start-up is helping retailers connect to large pan-African manufacturers to make them more agile and competitive. Yu tells Giokos, “I see our aim as being able to come in and provide small retail stores with the tools, with the technology, with the services to unlock their potential.”
Around 18,000 small business use Sokowatch. Angela Nzioki, Sokowatch Kenya CEO, explains the company’s success, “Typically, most retailers in Africa really struggle when it comes to access to goods and services, so where Sokowatch becomes really integral in that process is because we’ve taken the power of ecommerce and technology and really put this in the hands of the retailers.”
From billions of dollars pumped into infrastructure to mobile payment platforms, Africa’s digital transformation has the potential to spur economic growth and give rise to new tech and telecommunications companies across the continent.
Irvine Partners, the woman-led, African-born creative communications agency operating across Nigeria, has cemented its position as a disruptive force on the global stage following a landmark week of international industry recognition for its CEO and founder, Rachel Irvine.
Rachel-Irvine-CEO-Irvine-Partners
Irvine has been named to Campaign UK’s prestigious 40 over 40 list for 2026, while simultaneously earning a place on PRovoke Media’s Innovator 25 EMEA index – two of the communications industry’s most closely watched honours, secured in the same week. The achievement places her among the most influential and progressive communications leaders across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
For Nigeria – Africa’s largest economy and one of its most competitive and complex communications environments – the recognition speaks directly to something the local industry has long understood: that the strategic thinking, cultural intelligence and executional precision forged in African markets is not a regional advantage. It is a global one.
Irvine Partners brings this philosophy to some of the world’s most prominent digital and consumer brands in the Nigerian market, including TikTok, Spotify, Uber and Google – organisations that demand communications work of the highest international calibre, delivered with genuine local understanding.
An African agency rewriting the global narrative
Campaign UK’s 40 over 40 celebrates individual excellence, leadership and lasting impact within the British media and marketing landscape. PRovoke Media’s Innovator 25 spotlights those who are dismantling traditional PR structures, advancing data-led practice, and reshaping how the industry operates. To earn both in a single week is rare by any measure.
What underpins both honours is a story that begins not in London but in Africa – in the dynamic, high-stakes communications environments of markets like Nigeria, where agencies must be sharper, faster and more culturally precise than anywhere else in the world.
“These accolades are less about my own journey and far more about where Irvine Partners is going as a collective,” says Rachel Irvine. “For a long time, the global communications industry treated African agencies as local executors of global strategies. What we’ve proven over the past few years is that the technical craft, cultural capital, and data frameworks built within our agency are not just scalable for the continent; they are world-class.”
Built on the same ethos that works in Lagos
The recognition follows the agency’s strong performance at the IN2 SABRE Awards EMEA, where Irvine Partners took major wins for Unicorn School – its proprietary internal talent development programme – and for its advanced data analytics capability, alongside notable shortlists for global clients including Spotify and Uber.
Nigeria’s communications market is one of the most demanding in the world. Consumer audiences are sophisticated and discerning. The media environment is layered, fast-moving and deeply attuned to authenticity. Brands that succeed here do not do so through generic messaging – they do so through precision, cultural credibility and strategic consistency. These are precisely the competencies that Irvine Partners has built its international reputation on.
“The PR landscape has fundamentally shifted,” Irvine adds. “Clients no longer want siloed regional strategies; they want intelligent, culturally intuitive storytelling backed by bulletproof analytics that move the business needle. We built our foundations on that exact ethos in highly dynamic markets, and bringing that specific DNA to the UK and EMEA regions is why we are winning.”
The agency’s agile, borderless model – deliberately structured to move at the speed of modern brands rather than the pace of legacy networks- is one that Nigerian communications professionals will recognise as a natural evolution of how the best African agencies have always operated: lean, sharp and built for impact.
Underlying both honours is Irvine’s sustained commitment to talent development and cultural diversity across all of the agency’s wholly owned offices – a principle as central to its Lagos work as to any other market in its growing global footprint.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Chief Executive Officer, has announced a major leadership change at WhatsApp, confirming that Will Cathcart will step down as head of the messaging service after seven years in office.
Zuckerberg made the announcement in a post shared on Facebook on Monday, June 22, 2026, praising Cathcart’s contributions to the growth of the platform.
According to him, Cathcart played a key role in expanding WhatsApp’s global user base to over three billion people while promoting privacy-focused communication across its services.
“Will’s been one of Meta’s most important and effective leaders, helping to bring WhatsApp to over 3 billion people and championing privacy for our community,” Zuckerberg stated.
The Meta CEO also announced that Kunal Shal will take over leadership of WhatsApp.
He described Shal as a “builder” with strong international experience, adding that his leadership style aligns with Meta’s long-term vision for the messaging platform.
Meta said the transition is aimed at strengthening WhatsApp’s role in both personal and business communication globally, as the platform continues to expand its services across markets.
Industry observers say the leadership change marks a significant transition for WhatsApp, which has grown rapidly under Cathcart’s stewardship, particularly in areas of privacy, encryption, and enterprise messaging solutions.
However, Meta has not disclosed the exact timeline for the leadership handover or further structural changes within the messaging division.
The company reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining WhatsApp’s security standards and continued innovation under the new leadership.
MTN Nigeria has raised the bar for corporate disclosure in Africa after publishing its 2025 sustainability report in full compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards S1 and S2.
Dr. Karl Toriola, CEO of MTN Nigeria,
The report, independently assured by Ernst & Young, marks the telecom operator’s seventh consecutive annual sustainability publication and third year as an early adopter of the global framework ahead of its mandatory implementation.
Dr. Karl Toriola, CEO of MTN Nigeria, said, “strong governance and ethical conduct are foundational to our sustainability strategy. We reinforced compliance through our Conduct Passport Framework and robust internal controls.”
He added that “in May 2025, we became the first telecommunications company in Nigeria to publicly present a sustainability report on the Nigerian Exchange Group platform, an important milestone in our commitment to IFRS S1 and S2- aligned disclosure and accountability.”
The company also secured Carbon Disclosure Project ratings of ‘B-’ for climate change and ‘C’ for water security.
Under the IFRS S2 framework, the telecoms operator disclosed climate-related risks linked to flooding, heat stress, regulatory changes and possible future taxes or charges on carbon emissions, following a climate scenario analysis completed in 2024.
The report also showed that MTN Nigeria now uses a digital reporting format – XBRL. This makes its sustainability and governance data easier for investors and ESG rating agencies to access and analyse through automated systems.
The Company also carried out assessments to understand how sustainability issues affect both its business operations and society at large, while measuring its overall economic, environmental and social impact from 2021 to 2024.
In addition, over one-third of MTN Nigeria’s biggest suppliers (based on spending) have committed to supporting the company’s net-zero emissions goals, although these commitments have not yet gone through an independent audit or verification process.
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