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Johannesburg - Mobile telecommunications infrastructure provider IHS has snapped up more phone towers in Africa, bringing the company’s tower portfolio on the continent to 21 000.
An IHS announcement on Monday indicated that IHS will acquire 1 100 towers from mobile network Airtel’s Zambia and Rwanda operations.
Airtel plans selling and leasing back the 1 100 towers from IHS in Zambia and Rwanda under a 10-year renewable contract, according to the announcement.
IHS is in an African tower-buying frenzy with the company this year reaching an agreement in principle with MTN to operate its 9 151 mobile network towers in Nigeria.
IHS also said in November that it has raised $2.6bn in capital to fund its acquisitions.
African mobile operators are increasingly leasing rather than owning cell towers to drive down their capital expenditure in a market where voice and data prices are falling.
“This agreement will accelerate infrastructure sharing amongst operators and benefit customers in form of affordable tariffs and wider network coverage,” said Christian de Faria, MD and CEO Africa, Bharti Airtel.
Issam Darwish, Executive Vice Chairman and Group CEO of IHS, said, “We are very excited that following this deal more mobile phone users will benefit from the efficiencies and increased network uptimes that will result.”
Indian headquartered Bharti Airtel operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa and serves over 305 million customers across its operations.
The company’s deal with IHS is still subject to regulatory approval.
