{"id":38383,"date":"2013-05-22T13:09:46","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T11:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=38383"},"modified":"2013-05-23T08:49:08","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T06:49:08","slug":"pressure-mounts-on-mtn-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/38383\/pressure-mounts-on-mtn-nigeria\/","title":{"rendered":"Pressure mounts on MTN Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

MTN<\/a> faces new pressure on its dominance of its biggest market by subscriber base, Nigeria, after rival operator Etisalat<\/a> signed a $1.2 billion refinancing loan with 13 Nigerian banks to bolster its network in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company plans to use the proceeds to refinance the existing commercial medium term debt of $650 million and continue its network rollout,”\u00a0Etisalat said.<\/p>\n

By 13h00, shares in MTN declined 2.53% or 4.67% to R179.83 on the JSE. The All Shares Index declined 0.60% to 41,566 points.<\/p>\n

Launched in 2001, MTN has a market share of 49.7%\u00a0 (Q1 2013) in Nigeria, which boasts a population of 161 million, and a penetration rate of 65%.<\/p>\n

According to data compiled by the Nigeria Communications Commission,\u00a0Nigeria is the fastest growing\u00a0telecommunications market in Africa, rising from 500,000 telephone subscribers in 2001 to\u00a0over 108 million as at December 2012.<\/p>\n

For the year ended 31 December 2012,\u00a0MTN’s total subscriber base increased by 13.9% to 47.4 million in Nigeria, but market share was down 2.5% to 47.5% for the year.<\/p>\n

MTN says it hopes to add 7 million new subscribers in 2013.<\/p>\n

Its rivals in Nigeria include\u00a0Nigeria\u2019s Globacom<\/a>, Indian-owned\u00a0Bharti Airtel<\/a>\u00a0and Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat).<\/p>\n

\"MTN<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Nigeria\u2019s telecoms regulator ordered MTN\u00a0to charge customers the same rate whether calling rival operators or other MTN users, in order to reduce its market dominance.<\/p>\n

The NCC said that MTN charged its customers three times more to call rival operators than for calls between MTN users.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is indicative of the likely establishment of a calling club for MTN subscribers,\u201d the NCC said.<\/p>\n

And also in May,\u00a0Nigeria president, Goodluck Jonathan visited South Africa, meeting with MTN Group president and CEO, Sifiso Dabengwa<\/a>. And while MTN would not disclose the meeting\u2019s agenda, it was speculated that MTN\u2019s monopoly was discussed.<\/p>\n

More on MTN<\/h3>\n

Regulator chokes MTN Nigeria dominance<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Bharti to challenge MTN Uganda dominance?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN hits 195 million subscribers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN can accumulate, say analysts<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN in $3 billion loan deal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN bidding for Maroc Telecom?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN could spend R71bn on acquisition: CEO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN faces new pressure on its dominance of its biggest market by subscriber base, Nigeria, after rival operator Etisalat announced plans to improve its network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2917,5908,26,28,1890],"class_list":["post-38383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-etisalat","tag-goodluck-jonathan","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-sifiso-dabengwa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38383"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38493,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38383\/revisions\/38493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}