MTN Targets Africa’s $100bn Gaming Industry

Stephen Blewett

MTN Ghana is positioning the country to become a major hub for Africa’s emerging gaming and digital entertainment industry, leveraging the continent’s creative talent, expanding smartphone usage and advanced telecommunications infrastructure.

Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Stephen Blewett, said Africa had the talent and creative capacity to develop globally competitive games tailored to the continent’s market.

Speaking at the MTN DigiFest Gaming Conference, Mr. Blewett said gaming represented one of the biggest opportunities for Africa’s digital economy, with Ghana capable of playing a leading role in the development and export of locally created games.

“The future of the next big breakout in Africa will be gaming,” he said, adding that the continent’s creative talent provided a strong foundation for developing games locally.

He said MTN was particularly interested in supporting an ecosystem where games could be “built in Africa, for Africa”, with Ghana serving as a hub for development and distribution.

According to Mr. Blewett, the rollout of advanced telecommunications infrastructure, particularly fifth-generation (5G) technology, would be critical to unlocking the potential of the gaming industry.

MTN Ghana has secured one of Ghana’s 5G licences, and he said the company intended to deploy the technology to provide the high-speed, low-latency connectivity required for modern gaming and other interactive digital services.

He said the evolution of the gaming industry was also creating opportunities beyond traditional gaming consoles and specialised hardware.

With smartphones becoming increasingly powerful and mobile broadband access expanding, Mr. Blewett said consumers could now access games and other forms of digital entertainment through devices they already used daily.

This, he said, was lowering entry barriers for consumers and creating new opportunities for developers to reach large markets without relying solely on conventional gaming platforms.

Mr Blewett further said MTN Ghana intended to leverage its extensive customer base and distribution network to help local developers commercialise their products.

He said MTN Ghana had approximately 31 million subscribers, while the wider MTN Group served more than 300 million customers across 16 African markets.

He said MTN Ghana currently led the wider group in gaming adoption, providing a strong platform for local developers to test, launch and scale their products.

The company’s customer base and distribution infrastructure, he said, could give Ghanaian developers access to a substantial domestic market while creating opportunities to expand successful products into other African markets.

Chief Digital Officer of MTN Ghana, Ibrahim Misto, said the company was seeking to move beyond its traditional role as a telecommunications provider and become a more active participant in Ghana’s technology and innovation ecosystem.

***By Prince Fiifi Yorke ***

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