Douala, Cameroon Africa, October 2010 (news.cameroon-today.com)  -  Essar Telecom wants to export their brand Yu from Kenya to Tanzania, Zambia and Cameroon.

MINPOST Ministère des Postes et Télécommunications Cameroon vu du Lac

The Essar Group has just come into the open about their decision to move out their brand “Yu” which is the name under which they are presently marketing their mobile based services in Kenya over to other African countries like Uganda, the Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Cameroon.

Rajiv Sawhney, Essar CEO and key decision maker told a leading business newspaper in India today: ‘The Yu brand was created to be culturally and linguistically agnostic. Our plan is to have the brand in whichever geography we are present in. Africa is in the same stage of evolution where India was five to six years ago, and, hence, the potential is truly huge. The skills that we have developed in India will be more helpful in Africa rather than, say, Western Europe’.

Essar had forayed into East African countries in big way after they has taken over Econet Wireless Kenya by acquiring 49 percent stake in the company in 2008. The mobile services major now plans to make Kenya their base for moving over to other parts of the continent and their initial plans are for Uganda and the Republic of Congo. Their decision has been taken as a sequel to the deal that they had inked with the Dhabi Group in the first half of 2010 to obtain a majority share in their subsidiary Warid Telecom for USD150 million.

Sawhney also indicated that the telecom major has also strongly considered floating a bid for Zambia’s former state-owned telco Zamtel. But they revoked the decision to go ahead with the deal because in Sawhneys own words the opportunity ‘came with too much baggage’. However, he said that Zambia is very much part of their expansion plans as well.