Airtel Africa doubles Nigeria investment, earmarks $1.1bn for expansion

Says power crisis, vandalism threaten telecom investments** in Nigeria**

By Juliet Umeh

Airtel Africa has disclosed plans to significantly increase its capital investment in Nigeria as part of a broader $1.1 billion investment programme across its operations, targeting network expansion, data capacity, fibre infrastructure, spectrum and emerging technologies.

The Group Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Airtel Africa, Sunil Taldar, disclosed this in an interview on Arise Television, saying Nigeria remained one of the company’s most important markets amid rising demand for connectivity and digital services.

According to him, the company’s capital investment in Nigeria has “significantly almost doubled” as it moves to expand coverage and improve network capacity.

“If you look at Africa, we see a huge opportunity. There is still only about 50 percent telecommunications penetration and about 50 percent smartphone penetration.

“So, first and foremost, there is a massive opportunity on the continent. To realise this opportunity, what we need to do is expand coverage,” Taldar said.

He explained that Airtel Africa was also investing heavily to cope with growing data consumption.

“Our data growth, volume growth is upwards of 50 percent. To support this, one is coverage expansion. Second is we need to add a lot of capacity,” he said.

The CEO added that the company was investing in fibre and spectrum while exploring opportunities in home broadband, data centres and business-to-business services.

“The third and a very large investment that we are making is actually making Africa ready for the entire growth that will be delivered through AI. Data centres are another big area of opportunity. B2B is another big area of opportunity,” he stated.

Taldar said the company’s guidance for the year stood at about $1.1 billion at group level.

“That’s the enormous scale of investment that we’re making. All this is to support the demand that we are seeing in the market,” he said.

However, he identified inadequate electricity supply and vandalism as major threats to telecom investments, particularly in Nigeria.

“Our first challenge that we have is power availability in Africa. Particularly in Nigeria, we face very serious challenges,” he said.

According to him, operators have been forced to rely heavily on diesel to power base stations.

“We are delivering networks, but we are also becoming power generators. Now, that’s not our core job,” he stated.

He said diesel-powered sites cost almost four times more to operate than those connected to the grid, adding that rising diesel prices had further increased operating costs.

On vandalism, Taldar commended the Federal Government for declaring telecom infrastructure as national critical infrastructure, but said implementation must be strengthened.

“While we have declared it as national critical infrastructure, in implementation of this entire framework, there is a lot more that needs to be done,” he said.

He appealed to communities to protect telecom infrastructure, stressing that network disruption affects businesses and livelihoods.

“Each time when a telecom network comes down, it’s not only the telecom network which is coming down in a particular area, it’s part of the economy which is coming down,” Taldar warned.

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