Bharti Airtel to invest $600 mn in Nigeria

ABUJA, NIGERIA: Bharti Airtel Ltd will invest $600 million in Nigeria over the next three years, half within the next 12 months, the mobile phone company said on Wednesday.

Bharti last month completed a $9 billion acquisition of the African operations of Kuwait's Zain, taking over mobile operations in 15 African nations and making it the world's No.5 mobile operator by subscribers.

Bharti also plans to set up a 1,000-seater call centre in the West African nation in the next 18 months, company spokesman Emeka Oparah said. It is also planning to invest $100 million in Niger by 2012.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, with 140 million people, has overtaken South Africa to become the continent's biggest mobile telecoms market with around 76 million active mobile subscribers and competition there is heating up.

The Nigerian arm of Africa's biggest phone operator, South Africa's MTN, said last month it had signed loan agreements worth $2.2 billion to fund expansion, as it gears up for increasing competition from Bharti.

Bharti has said it aims to have 100 million subscribers and $5 billion a year in revenue in Africa by 2012/13 and is likely to mount a serious challenge to MTN's position as market leader in Nigeria.

A new undersea fibre optic cable from Europe to Nigeria went live last week, providing 10 times the bandwidth capacity of the existing cable.

The Main One cable is expected to herald rapid network expansion and falling costs for service providers, as well as increased competition and pressure to pass those savings on to consumers.