Hutchison Whampoa Group acquired 80% of Celltel Limited in 1998, and in 2003, changed the brand to Kasapa and the company name to Kasapa Telecom Limited. In January 2005, Kasapa became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hutchison Telecom.
Kasapa means ‘good talk’ in Twi, the most widely-spoken local language in Ghana. The Kasapa logo incorporates the “nnewuta” or double bell, a widely-recognised Ghanaian cultural symbol. The sound made by the nnewuta mimics the pronunciation of the word Kasapa, and is used in advertisements and on the network itself.
The small analogue network inherited from Celltel was expanded and then converted to CDMA2000 1X digital technology on 800 MHz in September 2005, with customers migrated overnight. Coverage has since expanded from the capital metropolitan area to over 250 cities, towns and villages in seven of Ghana’s ten regions.