Airtel appears to be strengthening its presence in Africa: The company will buy Warid's Uganda business, giving it a combined user base of 7.4 million customers in Uganda - 4.6 million with Airtel and 2.8 million with Warid - which it says amounts to a market share of 39% in the country. This is the second Warid business that Airtel is buying, after it acquired 70% in Warid Bangladesh in 2010. The price being paid for Warid Uganda has not been disclosed, and the deal is subject to regulatory and statutory approvals. Airtel in Africa Airtel has a presence in 17 African countries, with over 62 million customers at the end of quarter ended December 31, 2012. Last month Airtel increased its stake in Airtel Nigeria to 79.06%, buying 13.36% stake from some existing shareholders. Airtel is investing significantly in Africa, despite not meeting targets of $5 Billion topline and $2 billion EBITDA by 2012: the company launched 3G in 13 countries, Airtel Money in 15 countries. Manoj Kohli, MD and CEO (International), Bharti Airtel had said on the company's conference call that they intend to invest more. "There were two gaps of judgement. At that time (of the acquisition), the Africa market growth was 15%, and we thought we could grow 20%, but that didn’t happen because the market growth came down to 8%, and in some markets, to 6%. The infrastructure of network, IT, Brand, organization design, processes was weaker than we expected. I thought we could restructure…
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