Etisalat to raise $500m from local banks for expansion

Speaking at the Reuters Africa Investment Summit yesterday, the Commercial Officer of Etisalat, Wael Ammar, disclosed that the Telecoms company will raise $500 million in debt from National banks to enable it improve on network coverage across the country.

According to Ammar, the expected move is to also grow the market shares of Etisalat to 17 per cent this year, from the present mobile market shares of 15 per cent.
The company is struggling in market shares compared to other Telecoms companies. It was gathered that MTN has 43 per cent, while Globacom and Airtel’s mobile market share are at 22 and 20 per cent respectively.

“We expect average revenues for voice traffic across the Industry to continue to decline to around $5 per user over the next 3-5 years, from around $6-7 per user currently, average revenue per user (ARPU) was $10 per user in 2008,” said Ammar.

“We are investing $500 million this year to expand our network and services to Nigerian consumers,” he said. He Added that the present objective of the company is to target some 40 per cent of Nigerians who still don’t own a phone.
“We see the second wave of growth coming from the youth segment. It is a huge segment that will turn into future consumers and the growth will happen across multiple years,” he said.
The forecast from the International Telecommunication Union, reports that Nigeria will have 120 million mobile subscribers by end of 2013, out of a population of 170 million.


[Herald]