Telesom: Somaliland's largest phone company and the maker of ZAAD

The short version

Telesom was founded in 2002 in Hargeisa by local investors and was the first telecommunications company to operate in Somaliland (Telesom, About, archived 2020). It sells mobile and fixed-line calls, mobile and fixed broadband, SMS and cloud services, and runs the ZAAD mobile money service (Wikipedia, Telesom). Its chief executive is Abdikarim Mohamed Eid (same source).

Who owns it

A 2013 case study by the GSMA, the global mobile operators' association, said Telesom was "owned by 1,500 shareholders – all Somalilanders who live locally or abroad" (GSMA, Innovative Inclusion: Telesom ZAAD, 2013). No list of shareholders is published.

The Clingendael Institute's 2019 study of Somali business groups describes Telesom in Hargeisa and Golis in Puntland as entities "aligned" with Hormuud Telecom of Mogadishu, each with its own shareholders in its own territory, and says the three together held about 81 percent of SIM cards in the Somali regions at the time (Clingendael, Transnational capital in Somalia, June 2019, box 6 and box 7).

ZAAD, the first Somali mobile money

Telesom launched ZAAD in June 2009, the first mobile money service in the country (GSMA case study, 2013). With ZAAD people store US dollars on their phone, pay shops and bills, and receive money from abroad. By 2012, almost 40 percent of Telesom's GSM customers were active ZAAD users (same source). In June 2014 ZAAD had about 450,000 registered users, 31 percent of them women (GSMA, Connected Women: the example of Telesom). Later the service added a currency exchange function so users could swap Somaliland shillings and dollars on the phone (GSMA, currency exchange functionality). In 2024 ZAAD received the GSMA's Mobile Money Certification (Nation, 2024).

The money transfer service WorldRemit, founded by the Hargeisa-born Ismail Ahmed, connects to ZAAD so money sent from abroad lands in the phone wallet (Wikipedia, WorldRemit). See WorldRemit and Zepz.

Firsts the company claims

Telesom says it was the first to bring 2G, 3G and 4G (LTE) to Somaliland (Telesom, Telesom First). Before Dara-Salaam Bank opened in Hargeisa in 2010, it operated as Salaam Financial Services (Dara-Salaam Bank, About us, archived 2019).

Sources disagree

• Shareholders. The GSMA's 2013 case study says about 1,500; a 2012 press article reported about 1,000 (GSMA 2013; Somaliland telecoms: cashless doesn't mean less cash, May 2012, reprinted).
• ZAAD launch month. GSMA gives June 2009; the 2012 article gives May 2009 (same sources).
• Ties to Hormuud. Clingendael describes Telesom as Hormuud-aligned; Telesom presents itself as a Somaliland company owned by local shareholders (Clingendael 2019; Telesom, About).

For all the phone companies side by side, see Who connects Somalia. For mobile money across the country, see Mobile money.