MTN mulls another bid for Ethiopia licence

MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita

MTN Group will bid again for an Ethiopian telecommunications licence in the second round if mobile financial services are included, its CEO, Ralph Mupita, said on Friday after losing the first round.

Mobile financial services is key to MTN’s strategy as it continues to evolve from just providing voice to also providing data, digital services, and mobile payment and lending solutions as demand for these services rise.

The group expects fintech service revenue contribution to rise from 8% to 20% in 2025, with mobile money subscribers seen rising to 100 million from the current 46.6 million, chief financial officer Tsholofelo Molefe told investors.

We really wanted to have seen mobile money in the licence regime, so we adjusted our bid for the lack of mobile money

“For us, it will really be important to see mobile money in that opportunity to put forward a bid and if it’s not there then probably we wouldn’t even bid,” Mupita told investors at the group’s capital markets day.

If licence conditions in the second round remain the same, it might not bid at a higher amount, he said.

Winning bidder

Last month, Ethiopia’s telecoms regulator announced that it had awarded one operating licence to a consortium led by Safaricom, Vodafone and Japan’s Sumitomo.

The consortium, which includes Vodacom and British development finance agency CDC Group, paid US$850-million for the licence, while MTN’s offer of $600-million was deemed too low.