Kampala — WARID has denied that it is rebranding itself. "That is inaccurate. We are not considering any kind of rebranding," said Zul Javaid, the chief executive officer.

The Dhabi Group, which owns WARID, has been discussing with Essar, another telecom group about how it could take over its African assets.

Zul said since the firm opened shop last year, it had built up WARID into a leading brand.

"Why would we want to change the brand?" he asked. Javaid, however, would not comment on the progress of the talks with Essar.

There was no immediate response from the regulator about reports that WARID was planning to rebrand.

Essar owns 33% of Vodafone Essar, a leading Indian telecoms company, which has 75 million subscribers. It is a joint venture with the Vodafone Group.

Essar holds a 33% interest of Vodafone, one of India's largest cellular service providers, with over 75 million subscribers.

Essar Telecom Kenya has also recently launched Kenya's fourth mobile cellular network under the brand "yu".