Zain Group Expands Operations Across Africa

Zain Group has made a significant move in expanding its operations across Africa, with a presence in 8 countries including Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, and Morocco.

The group's expansion into new markets has enabled it to reach a wider customer base, with over 50 million subscribers across its operations.

Zain Group's African operations are driven by its vision to provide innovative and high-quality services to its customers, with a focus on digital transformation and customer experience.

The group's presence in Africa has also enabled it to tap into the region's growing demand for mobile services, with a significant increase in mobile penetration rates across the continent.

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Zain Group is a leading mobile telecommunications provider in the Middle East and North Africa, founded in 1983 as Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC) in Kuwait.

The company has a significant presence in the region, operating in eight countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Sudan, South Sudan, and Kuwait.

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Zain serves almost 50 million customers across its operations, making it a major player in the telecommunications market.

Zain's growth strategy has been focused on expanding its operations in the Middle East and Africa, with a significant investment in new growth opportunities in these markets.

Here are some key statistics about Zain's operations:

8 countries with a commercial footprint

6 countries where Zain is a market leader

Zain's decision to expose APIs to partners has enabled the company to easily onboard more partners of all sizes, providing a standard way to integrate with the systems of all operators.

The company's partnership with Apigee has been instrumental in achieving this goal, with Apigee's leadership position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Full Life Cycle API Management standing out to Zain.

Zain Group is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange, with 100% of its capital being free float and publicly traded.

The company's revenue for Q2 2024 was KD 479 million (USD 1.6 billion), a 4% increase from Q2 2023.

Zain Group's normalized EBITDA grew 13% year-over-year, reaching KD 178 million (USD 579 million), resulting in an EBITDA margin of 37%.

This growth in EBITDA led to a 55% increase in normalized net income, reaching KD 52 million (USD 170 million), with an earnings per share of 12 fils.

Zain Group is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange and has a 100% free float, meaning all its shares are publicly traded.

The company generated a consolidated revenue of KD 479 million in Q2 2024, a 4% increase from the same period in 2023.

This revenue growth led to a 13% year-over-year increase in normalized EBITDA, reaching KD 178 million.

The EBITDA margin also improved, standing at 37% in Q2 2024.

Normalized net income growth was particularly impressive, soaring 55% to reach KD 52 million.

This growth resulted in an earnings per share of 12 fils.

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In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), a significant financial deal has been announced. Zain KSA has secured a $1.4 billion Islamic loan from five regional banks.

The loan is structured under a Murabaha financing agreement, which is a common Islamic financing method. This facility will be used to repay existing Murabaha loans.

The five regional banks involved in this agreement are Al Rajhi Bank, Arab National Bank, Saudi National Bank, Riyad Bank, and Gulf International Bank.

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Zain has a significant presence in various countries, with operations in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, and Sudan.

The company's network covers 100% of Bahrain's population and offers 4.5G LTE services across the country. In Iraq, Zain has 15.7 million customers and provides 4.5G LTE services nationwide.

Zain's flagship operation in Kuwait was established in 1983 and became the first telecom operator to launch commercial GSM services in the region. The company has also launched 5G commercial services in Kuwait and covered over 90% of populated areas with 5G services by the end of 2019.

Here's a list of countries where Zain has operations:

Zain's partnerships with Apigee have simplified integration processes, allowing partners to onboard in less than a month, down from months or years previously.

Zain has a significant presence in several countries across the Middle East and Africa.

The company started its operations in Bahrain on August 14, 2003, as MTC-Vodafone, and has since introduced 4.5G LTE services to the country.

Zain's network covers 100% of Bahrain's population.

Zain has been providing mobile services in Iraq since December 2003 and acquired Iraqna's network in 2007, becoming the largest mobile operator in Iraq with 15.7 million customers.

In 1994, Zain in Jordan, formerly Fastlink, was the first to introduce mobile services in the country.

Zain in Kuwait is the group's flagship operation, established in 1983, and it was the first telecom operator to launch commercial GSM services in the region.

Zain launched 5G commercial services in Kuwait in June 2019 and covered over 90% of populated areas with 5G services by the end of 2019.

Zain won a four-year management contract to operate one of Lebanon's two GSM networks in June 2004, rebranded to touch, which has subsequently been renewed.

Zain launched its commercial operations in Saudi Arabia on August 26, 2008, a year after it was awarded its mobile license.

In October 2019, Zain KSA launched 5G commercial services in what was then the largest 5G rollout in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

Here is a list of the countries where Zain has operations:

Before working with Apigee, partners would need to complete eight separate integration projects in eight countries, taking months or even years to finalize integration.

Zain has reduced partner integration time to less than a month with Apigee, and expects integration speeds to only get faster.

The company has onboarded six different partners since going live with Apigee, with the most recent partner integrating in just a few weeks.

Zain has rolled out Apigee to five of its eight operating countries, giving partners access to 30 million customers through a centralized and standardized platform.

Apigee is having a broader impact throughout Zain, with business leaders exploring ways to centralize and standardize contract workflows.

The multinational structure of Zain traditionally required partners to sign separate contracts with each operator, but Apigee is helping to simplify this process.

Apigee has been a catalyst for exploring greater standardization across Zain Group, making it easier for partners to work with the company.

Zain entered Africa in May 2005 through the $3.4 billion purchase of Celtel International, which had 13 country operations in Africa, serving five million customers at that time.

By June 2010, Zain had over 40 million customers across the continent, operating in 13 countries including Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

Zain invested heavily across the continent through network upgrades and acquiring two more country licenses.

In early 2010, Zain accepted an offer for the sale of all its Africa operations.

On 8 June 2010, Zain announced that it had satisfied all required conditions precedent to closing the sale of 100% of Zain Africa BV to Bharti Airtel Limited for $10.7 billion on an enterprise basis.

Today, Zain operates on the African continent only in Sudan, South Sudan, and Morocco.

Zain Group has successfully explored new lines of business through APIs, which has significantly accelerated their time to market and reduced costs.

By connecting to all operators through a single API, Zain has seen a substantial reduction in integration projects for customers, making it a more efficient option.

The company has released about a dozen APIs so far, including those related to messaging, charging accounts, and delivering refunds, with the platform already seeing about 2 million API calls per month.

Zain is considering using the monetization features in Apigee to turn its customer verification services into new revenue streams, further diversifying their business.

Using APIs, Zain can offer customer verification services to companies, verifying customers without disclosing personal data, and this has the potential to boost their revenues even further.

The scalability of Apigee was a key reason Zain chose it, as they have many ideas about how to reach partners and expand into new lines of business through APIs, and they're reassured that Apigee can scale to any volume needed.

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