MTN Swaziland Says It Sees Bumper Growth On Horizon
2005-05-01 13:41:34 | Viewed 1070 times
Cellular operator MTN Swaziland, a unit of South Africa's MTN Group, was poised for growth as it expanded its network and held virtual monopoly status, a senior executive said yesterday.
"The [tele]communications industry is doing surprisingly well," said Khumalo, adding that the more customers signed up, the better the chances that MTN Swaziland could cut prices as it moved to exercise economies of scale.
Swaziland has one of the highest rates of Aids prevalence in the world and has faced food shortages over the past five years, while King Mswati lll - sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, known for his many wives and luxury lifestyle - is often accused of human rights and democracy abuses.
The king rejects the criticism as unwarranted and ignorant.
Only two years into operation in 2000, MTN Swaziland's subscriber base surpassed
landline users, who then numbered 28 000. Its subscribers have now risen
to 150 000 compared with 35 000 fixed-line users.
MTN Swaziland is the smallest unit in the MTN Group. It won a tender in 1998 to be the kingdom's exclusive cellphone provider for a decade on the condition it assumed all the costs of building a national cellular network.
Khumalo was tapped from the MTN Group's South African operations to run the Swaziland business.
Khumalo spoke in superlative terms of MTN Swaziland's shareholding structure, which seeks to place a large chunk of the company's wealth in the hands of Swazis.
"I believe we have the most successful model in Swaziland for local empowerment. The Swazi government owns 51 percent of MTN Swaziland, MTN Group controls 30 percent and 19 percent is owned by ordinary Swazi shareholders through Swaziland Empowerment Limited," Khumalo said.
Licensing agreements require MTN Swaziland to spend R34 million in 10 years to provide phone services to rural districts often ignored in infrastructure development.
MTN Swaziland says its network now covers 70 percent of the land mass, built from scratch. In recent months, it installed 100 payphones fixed to the old landline system for users who do not have cellphone access.
"Cellphones are serving needs no one had thought of. Many urban Swazis have family homes in the countryside. Rather than drive long distances every weekend to check on their older relatives, they are buying them cellphones and check in every day.
This frees them on weekends for other 'quality of life' activities," Khumalo said.
MTN operates in Nigeria, Cameroon, Rwanda and Uganda too.
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