Facebook plans to set up office in Kenya to tap into mobile money success in East Africa, increasing threats to wipe out the main source of revenue by telecommunication firms.
The social media giant set up office in South Africa on June 29 and has listed Kenya and Nigeria as its anchor countries to grow business. Its regional interest comes when telcos have raised fears of the rise in voice call platforms such as Facebook Messenger, Viber and Whatsap.
"Facebook will partner with governments, telecom operators, agencies and other stakeholders to deliver localised solutions to advertisers and users continent-wide.
It will continue to focus on tailoring solutions, metrics and ad formats to the needs of customers and advertisers in the mobile-first, mobile-only African environment," said Ari Kesisoglu the regional director, Middle East and Africa at Facebook.
Telcos have good reason to be afraid as more technology giants plot their big moves against network operators.
Facebook is joined by Google that has local presence and has launched a mobile network with ultra-fast broadband in the US called Project Fi.
