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Competition commission approves MTN, Afrihost deal

Cape Town - MTN has the go-ahead to acquire 50% of internet service provider Afrihost, a deal that an expert says further entrenches consolidation in the country’s telecoms market.

Afrihost announced on Thursday that South Africa’s Competition Commission and the Commission Tribunal gave the deal the green light.

Afrihost also says in a statement that it moved its DSL services onto the MTN network in October 2012. The internet service provider then entered the mobile data space a year later.

“We do want to assure all our clients that nothing will change at Afrihost operationally,” said Afrihost CEO Gian Visser in a statement.

“Our management and systems will remain in place and Afrihost will continue to play the innovative role our clients expect in the industry. We’ll just have a big brother behind us to make sure we have all the resources we need to delight our clients at every opportunity,” he added.

The MTN-Afrihost deal is the latest in a series of high-profile acquisitions this year.

Telecoms provider Telkom is in a bid to buy cloud service specialists Business Connexion (BCX) while mobile operator Vodacom has moved to acquire fixed-line business Neotel.

“The MTN, Afrihost deal is another confirmation of the consolidation in the ICT sector in South Africa,” Frost & Sullivan’s ICT Industry Analyst, Joanita Roos, told Fin24.

“Key consumer trends that are driving the data market in South Africa include: ubiquitous connectivity, personalised services and the ability for customers to purchase the full range of telecommunications services through a single provider,” Roos further told Fin24.

Roos further told Fin24 that internet protocol (IP) traffic in South Africa is expected to grow four-fold from 2013 to 2018.

* Follow @GarethvanZyl  on Twitter. For more tech news, follow Fin24tech @Fin24_Tech.

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