Ntel seeks $1 billion for mobile-broadband expansion

05 Apr 2016
Financial Nigeria

Summary

Ntel is positioning itself to be a leading provider of high-speed data, high-definition voice, and video services to its customers.

Kamar Abass, CEO, NatCom Development and Investment Limited

NatCom Development and Investment Limited (Ntel), which acquired the defunct Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), is seeking to raise over $1 billion to expand its operations across Nigeria.

In an interview with Bloomberg on March 31, Kamar Abass, Ntel’s CEO, said the company plans to use the additional funds to invest in a 4G mobile-broadband network by 2020.

“We are speaking to investors and to banks who are interested in a growth story for Africa," said Abass. “We are seeing the very beginnings of a shift from a voice-oriented communications market in Nigeria to one that will be dominated by mobile broadband.”

Faced with declining revenues from voice and text messages, Nigerian telecoms companies are trying to expand their Internet services to meet the growing demand for high-speed data. In January, MTN, Nigeria’s largest telecoms operator, acquired Visafone Communications to boost its broadband Internet services to its subscribers.

Ntel is seeking to enter Nigeria’s lucrative telecommunications market after paying $252 million in 2015 to acquire the assets of NITEL, the once-dominant state telephone company, and its mobile arm, MTEL. The company will commence operations in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria’s commercial and federal capital territory, respectively, on April 8.

Ntel is positioning itself to be a leading provider of high-speed data, high-definition voice, and video services to its customers. Last week, the company said it had repaired and returned to full service its SAT-3 cable, which was cut in 2013 during the land reclamation that accompanied the Eko Atlantic project.


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