08 November 2019

Mamadou Mbengue, general manager of Free Senegal – photo: linkedin

Tigo, the second largest telephone operator in Senegal with 25% of market share has been rebranded as Free Senegal.

The launch of the Free brand had been anticipated since the acquisition in 2018 of Tigo Senegal, owned by the Luxembourg telecommunications company Millicom, by Saga Africa Holdings, a consortium of French billionaire businessman Xavier Niel, the Senegalese multimillionaire Yérim Habib Sow and Madagascan businessman Hassanein Hiridjee.

“For 18 months, we had a US$150m investment plan ($136.5m): we expanded our network, deployed fibre optics, started lowering our prices,” said Mamadou Mbengue, general manager of Free Senegal. “We have been able to build a 4G + network. After all that, you had to come up with a strong brand. We wanted to break the codes and Free is a brand of rupture. Senegal becomes the first foreign country where the Free banner is used.”