FILE PHOTO: SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks on a screen during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, June 29, 2021. REUTERS/Nacho Doce/File Photo
KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Tuesday that he had a "productive meeting" with the representatives of tech billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink, which is looking to establish a presence in the East African country.
A unit of SpaceX, the satellite internet company is rapidly expanding its services on the African continent and is already live in more than a dozen countries. It was granted licences by Somalia and Lesotho earlier this month.
"I appreciate their commitment to providing low-cost internet in hard-to-reach areas and establishing a presence in Uganda. They are welcome," Museveni said on X.
Ugandan consumers have long complained about the high cost and unreliability of domestic internet services, which some blame on the lack of sufficient competition in the market.
It was unclear if Starlink had already formally applied for a license to operate in Uganda. A spokesperson for the sector regulator Uganda Communications Commision (UCC) did not respond to a Reuters request for a comment.
A unit of South African telecom giant MTN group is the dominant player in the East African country's data market and chiefly competes with a unit of India's Bharti Airtel.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Bhargav Acharya and Tomasz Janowski)
