Type | Public |
---|---|
Industry | Telecommunications |
Founded | 2001 |
Founder | Sam Darwish |
Area served | Africa, Latin America, Middle East |
Website | ihstowers |
IHS Towers is one of the largest telecommunications infrastructure providers in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East by tower count and the fourth largest independent multinational tower company globally. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Founded by Sam Darwish in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2001, IHS is a company specializing in building and operating telecommunication infrastructure throughout emerging markets. Following the completion of a sale and lease back agreement with the mobile network operator Zain in Kuwait, and the acquisition of Cell Site Solutions in February 2020, IHS Towers expanded its operations to outside of Africa and now operate across three continents. It is one of the world’s fastest growing tower operators, owning and managing over 39,000 towers in nine countries: Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia - Africa; Brazil, Colombia, Peru – Latin America; and Kuwait – Middle East. [1] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
IHS listed on the NYSE in October 2021 in what was noted as the largest US listing of a company with an African heritage. [12]
The company operates six business models: building its own tower sites and leasing them to operators; acquiring existing MNO sites and leasing tower space back; taking over the management of operators networks with an agreement to lease the sites to other operators: inbuilding solutions and Distributed Antenna System (DAS); Small Cell and Fiber to the Tower. [13] [14] [15]
In November 2021, IHS expanded its fiber offering and closed its acquisition of a 51% stake in FiberCo Solucoes de Infraestrutura from TIM Brasil. The company to acquire MTN South Africa’s towers, and a partnership with EDCI, a subsidiary owned by the Egyptian Government, to build 5,800 towers over the next three years. [16]
IHS increased its use of solar energy and hybrid power systems to reduce its overall emissions, as at December 2020, over 45% of its African operations had solar power available. [16]
Some of the MNOs that IHS works with include: MTN, Orange, Airtel, Etisalat, Millicom, Zain and Vivo. [1] [3] [17] [18]
IHS is heavily involved in bringing broadband internet to the whole of Africa. [19] IHS partners with startup telecom companies such as Spectranet and Smile to help finance the deployment of their network into urban areas.
Aside from its founding partners, UBC, IHS is supported by a group of international shareholders including Emerging Capital Partners, the International Finance Corporation, Wendel, Goldman Sachs, African Infrastructure Investment Managers, Investec, the IFC’s Global Infrastructure Fund, the Dutch development finance institution (FMO) and the Korea Investment Corporation and Singapore sovereign wealth fund, GIC. [20] [21] [22] [23]
The IHS Board includes Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and GOP presidential hopefully, who heads the governance committee; Ursula Burns, the former Xerox CEO and the first Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company, who also sits on the Uber and Nestle boards; and Carolina Lacerda, the former head of investments banking of UBS in Brazil. [24]
IHS competitors in Africa include Helios Towers and American Tower Corporation.
Communications in Afghanistan is under the control of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT). It has rapidly expanded after the Karzai administration took over in late 2001, and has embarked on wireless companies, internet, radio stations and television channels.
The following is an outline of communications technology in Morocco.
A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobile network operator to obtain bulk access to network services at wholesale rates, then sets retail prices independently. An MVNO may use its own customer service, billing support systems, marketing, and sales personnel, or it could employ the services of a mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE).
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Airtel Africa plc, commonly known as (d/b/a) Airtel, is a multinational company that provides telecommunications and mobile money services in 14 countries in Africa, primarily in East, Central and West Africa. Airtel Africa is majority owned by the Indian telecommunications company Bharti Airtel. Airtel Africa offers mobile voice and data services as well as mobile money services both nationally and internationally. Airtel Nigeria is the most profitable unit of Airtel Africa, due to its cheap data plans in Nigeria. As of March 2019, Airtel had over 99 million subscribers in the continent. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Sam Darwish is a U.S. entrepreneur active in the telecommunications industry. He is Chairman and CEO of IHS Towers, which operates more than 39,000 towers across three continents and listed on the NYSE in October 2021.
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