MTN Group and Airtel Africa, entered into an agreement to share mobile network infrastructure in Nigeria and Uganda, a move aimed at reducing investment costs while expanding service coverage.
In a joint statement released on Wednesday, the two companies explained that the deal comes in response to the increasing demand for digital and financial services across Africa, which has made building and maintaining networks, especially for 5G, increasingly expensive.
The partnership will also explore potential collaboration in other markets, including Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, and Zambia.
Key elements under consideration include sharing radio access networks—one of the largest cost components in network deployment, as well as commercial and technical agreements for fiber infrastructure sharing.
In some cases, the companies may even consider constructing new fiber networks.
The statement further emphasized that the agreement does not preclude the companies from partnering with other operators in their respective markets.
MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita commented, “As MTN, we are driven by the vision of delivering digital solutions that drive Africa’s progress.
We continue to see strong structural demand for digital and financial services across our markets.
To meet this demand, we invest in coverage and capacity to ensure high-quality connectivity for our customers.
At the same time, we see opportunities within regulatory frameworks for resource-sharing to improve efficiencies and returns.”
Airtel Africa CEO Sunil Taldar highlighted that sharing infrastructure would help avoid the duplication of costly networks, enabling faster network expansion, particularly in rural and sparsely populated areas where building separate networks would be economically unfeasible.
