Company 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.
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).
Sunil Bharti Mittal is an Indian billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, which has diversified interests in telecom, insurance, real estate, education, malls, hospitality, Agri and food besides other ventures. Bharti Airtel, the group's flagship company is one of the world's largest and India's largest telecom company with operations in 18 countries across Asia and Africa with a customer base of over 399 million. Bharti Airtel clocked revenues of over US$18 billion in FY2023. In 2023 he was ranked the 10th richest person in India by Forbes, with an estimated net worth of US$14.8 billion.
MTN Group Limited is a South African multinational corporation and mobile telecommunications provider. Its head office is in Johannesburg. As of December 2022 MTN recorded 289.1 million subscribers. MTN is among the largest mobile network operators in the world, and the largest in Africa.
Dialog Axiata PLC, is one of Sri Lanka's largest telecommunications service providers, and the country's largest mobile network operator with over 17 million subscribers which amounts to 57% of the Sri Lankan mobile market. Dialog is a subsidiary of Axiata Group Berhad which owns 73.75% controlling stake of the company, while Bharti Airtel owns 10.36%, and the rest is held by the public.
Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Currently, Airtel provides 5G, 4G and LTE Advanced services throughout India. Currently offered services include fixed-line broadband, and voice services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel had also rolled out its Voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology across all Indian telecom circles. It is the second largest mobile network operator in India and the second largest mobile network operator in the world. Airtel was named India's 2nd most valuable brand in the first ever Brandz ranking by Millward Brown and WPP plc.
The Internet in South Africa, one of the most technologically resourced countries on the African continent, is expanding. The internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .za is managed and regulated by the .za Domain Name Authority (.ZADNA) and was granted to South Africa by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1990. Over 60% of Internet traffic generated on the African continent originates from South Africa. As of 2020, 41.5 million people were Internet users.
Airtel Tanzania Limited is the third-largest mobile network operator in Tanzania operated by Airtel Africa, which is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel of India, behind Vodacom Tanzania and Tigo Tanzania. As of September 2017, Airtel Tanzania had 10.6 million voice subscribers. As of December 2017 according to data provided by the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority, Airtel Tanzania controlled 27.1 percent of Tanzania's mobile telephone market by customer numbers, at that time estimated at 10.86 million.
MTN Uganda is the largest telecom company in Uganda, with 11.2 million subscribers, accounting for 55 percent market share, as of 30 June 2017. By 31 December 2019, its customer base had increased to 12.6 million customers. In March 2021, the Uganda Communications Commission estimated the number of MTN customers in Uganda at 15 million, out of 28.3 million mobile network subscribers, thereby attaining a 53 percent market share. In May 2024, MTNU registered her 20 millionth customer in the country.
Airtel Africa plc, trading as Airtel, is an Indian 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.
MTN Group, a major multi-national telecom company based in Johannesburg, South Africa, was handed down a $5.2 billion fine by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The commission exercised section 20(1) of the Telephone Subscribers regulation (TSR) law on MTN, for not meeting the deadline set up by the Mobile network operators (MNOs) for disconnecting the Subscribers Identification Modules (SIM) with improper registration. The compliance audit carried out by the NCC on MTN network revealed unregistered 5.2 million customers lines un-deactivated. This led to the NCC fining MTN with the sum of $1000 for each unregistered SIM, which amounted to $5.2bn.
Airtel Uganda Limited is a mobile communications and information technology services provider in Uganda. The company also offers mobile funds transfer and banking services known as Airtel Payments Bank. Airtel Uganda Limited is a subsidiary of Airtel Africa PLC.
Seamless Distribution Systems (SDS), a Swedish software company listed on Nasdaq First North Premier, currently operates in over 50 markets in Africa, Asia, Middle East, Europe and North America.
The Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) is a private sector-led organization in Nigeria established to assist the government in combating the Coronavirus disease in the country. It was launched on March 26, 2020, following an announcement made by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele. The purpose of the relief fund is to "support the Federal government of Nigeria in containing the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria; to ensure patients get the care they need and frontline workers get essential supplies and equipments; and to accelerate efforts to provide tests and treatments. Major companies, including Dangote Group, Access Bank and MTN have donated to the CACOVID Relief Fund, in addition to several private organizations and individuals.
Cellnex Telecom is a Spanish wireless telecommunications infrastructure and services company with up to 135,000 sites -including forecast roll-outs up to 2030- throughout Europe. Its activity is divided into four main areas: services for telecommunications infrastructures; audiovisual broadcasting networks; security and emergency network services; and solutions for the intelligent management of urban infrastructures and services.
Banks V. Telcos USSD Dispute is a 2019 commercial dispute in Nigeria between the banks and telecommunication companies about who should pay for the use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) for financial transactions such as funds transfer, checking account balance and mobile airtime top-ups. This service gained wide usage in Nigeria in 2015 and the dispute centered around who should pay the costs of these transactions.
The Service-Telecom Group of Companies is an independent wireless telecommunication infrastructure operator that constructs and leases antenna-mast structures (AMS) to place telecom equipment.