Every Monday of every week, MTN’s 12 Uganda dealers take time to meet with each other and MTN sales staff, to discuss what’s happening in the market, to talk about challenges and to find solutions. Also every week, the dealers’ managers meet to discuss common issues experienced on the ground.

Heading up the MTN Dealer Forum is Alex Ruhunda, a member of parliament and in every sense of the word an MTN Uganda pioneer – even though he has never been on the company’s payroll. In 1999, the newly established MTN Uganda had just one dealer but realised it needed more, particularly in regions where the brand was under-represented.

Starting from scratch

Enter Alex, a young entrepreneur who had done some market research consulting for the nascent business. One day he was introduced to MTN’s Pieter Venter, then in charge of distribution and Alex asked about acquiring a franchise dealership. “He asked me if I had the money [to buy the franchise – then 30 million shillings – about $10 000],” Alex recalls. “I said I didn’t but thought I had the means to get the cash.

“Pieter advised me to find some partners and form a new company. Which is what I did. Two friends, Denis and Joseph, came on board; One had land which we used as collateral to start DAJ Communications – named after our initials.

“We got our first contract [with MTN] in 2000. We started with just two staff and a container which MTN designed for us and put cellphones around the container that customers could use. We were in business.”

Based in the western Ugandan city of Fort Portal, DAJ Communications began expanding across the region, assisted every step of the way, Alex says, by MTN staff who took a personal interest in the new business and were invested in its success.

“MTN’s business model was quite unlike anything in other sectors; they really invested in Ugandan entrepreneurs and we never felt like we were a separate company; rather the experience was of being part of MTN,” says Alex in 2024. “As a franchisee, you felt like you were buying shares in the company and that the more they succeeded, the more you succeeded.

“A big part of our success was the way in which MTN demystified cellphones. Previously, these devices had been only for the rich and those working in big corporates. MTN made mobiles phones accessible, meaning that ordinary Ugandans could afford them.”

Early days

In the early days airtime was sold exclusively using scratch cards – which consumers bought from dealers. “We made extremely good money in those days,” says Alex. “Then when airtime went digital, people could load airtime electronically, on their phones, and our revenue fell by half. We had to adapt, and quickly.”

Another game changer for dealers like Alex and his partners was the introduction of Mobile Money (MoMo). Managing agents – DAJ Communications has almost 6 000 on its books – is a daily full-time job of “a cash and float” model, making sure that agents don’t run out of cash. The same applies to sub-dealers while recruiting merchants is an ongoing part of the dealers’ business.

Investing in the community

As well as heading up the MTN Dealer Forum, Alex is the company’s Chief Community Officer for Western Uganda. It’s an honorary title but one that the entrepreneur-turned-politician is ideally qualified for. He was instrumental in starting up the Mountains of the Moon University just outside Fort Portal with the first staff being on his payroll. Through his efforts (and funding), the university – which has a strong ICT focus – has offered more than 300 scholarships – also paid for by Alex’s business. After starting life in 2005 very much as a community initiative, the Mountains of the Moon University was taken over by government in 2021.

Today Alex’s community initiatives (working with multiple partners including MTN and the public sector) include an innovation hub (with the Bridge Institute of Information Technology) and building a smart city in Fort Portal – which MTN is helping to drive. Focuses include smart tourism and smart agriculture and identifying “changemakers”, selfless individuals who make a difference in their communities and can be supported by the MTN Foundation.

“MTN understands that the dealerships are key to its success,” says Alex. “The competition has tried to replicate what MTN has but has had limited success. We are like a family that has been living together for a long time, that shares the same vision. As dealers, we concentrate 100% on MTN; every day we wake up and think how we can drive MTN’s success. MTN thinks the same about its dealers.”