Considering its growing importance to the entire operations of the MTN Group, MTN Nigeria will gulp about $1.5bn (13.1 billion Rand) of the total group’s capital expenditure over $3bn (29 billion Rand) in 2013.
The Corporate Services Executive, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Wale Goodluck, who said this during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, on Thursday, said the $1.5bn allocation to MTN Nigeria represented slightly less than 50 per cent of the total group’s capex.
He said the money would be spent on the expansion of MTN Nigeria’s network and in turn improves quality of service.
According to him, MTN Group’s allocation to its Nigerian operation for 2013 is the highest in all it’s over 20 countries of operations.
Next to MTN Nigeria in the capital expenditure allocation, he said, was South Africa followed by Iran with 5 billion Rand and less than 2 billion Rand respectively.
Goodluck, who recalled that $1.3bn was used as capex for MTN Nigeria in 2012, said Nigeria was still favoured in the current year by taking the lion share of the group’s total capital expenditure.
Goodluck reiterated that the $1.5bn capex would be directed at network expansion such as the building more base stations and fibre transmissions across the country.
The fresh investment, according to him, will allow the over 45 million telecoms subscribers on MTN Nigeria’s network to enjoy improved access voice and data services with better coverage.
He further revealed that MTN Nigeria utilised its $1.3bn Capex for 2012 plus the $300m left over in 2011; adding that the fund had been spent of the network modernisation and swapping exercise which began early last year.
On the level of progress so far recorded in the network modernisation project, Goodluck revealed that out of the 5,528 target telecoms sites, 4, 615 sites had already been modernised and upgraded.
He said MTN, which currently has about 9, 000 sites across the country, would build and upgrade additional 5, 000 base stations on its 2G network and about 4, 000 sites on 3G network.
He said, “Looking at MTN Nigeria, we continue to grow our voice network and also grow our data business at 100 per cent rate annually. The data business is going to be a lot more significant than voice.
“We’re seeing an increase in demand for data services and that informs the investment that we are putting in on 3G data networks. Voice is king. Data is a very ambitious prince but still a boy,” he said.
Meanwhile, MTN Group results for the year ended 31 December 2012, released yesterday reflect solid progress in growing subscribers, revenue and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation.
Highlights of the results showed that Group subscribers increased 15.1 per cent to 189.3 million∙ Revenue increased 10.9 per cent to R135, 112 million∙ Data revenues increased 58.5 per cent to R14 574 million∙