Ahead of TowerXchange Meetup Africa Tudor Samuila, Country Manager of Minara Tanzania, a joint-venture towerco between SBA Communications and Paradigm Infrastructure, shares an update to the role Minara has been playing in closing the digital divide one of Africa's most active tower markets.
TowerXchange: For those who may not be aware please introduce yourself and your experience in Africa’s telecom infrastructure industry.
Tudor Samuila, Country Manager, Minara Tanzania:
I have been part of the African telecommunication community since 2010, working for mobile network operators, infrastructure contractors and tower companies. I lived in Kenya, Gabon, Tchad, Ivory Coast, Niger, Senegal, Morocco and Tanzania.
I am now responsible for Minara Tanzania, leading a great team of 70 professionals. I am passionate about the telecommunications industry, the people who work in it and its potential for impact in Africa.
TowerXchange: It has been over two years since Minara Towers was formed after the joint venture between SBA Communications and Paradigm Infrastructure acquired Airtel Tanzania’s telecom towers. How has the business evolved since then?
Tudor Samuila, Country Manager, Minara Tanzania:
Actually, it has been three years now, and Minara will have been operational 1,000 days in a few days’ time.
A full complement of staff has joined, coming from different parts of our industry. We managed to build a great team. We located our head office close to our customers.
Minara has increased power availability to all customers, seen robust growth in the Lease Up Rates, and has a decent pipeline of new builds, for the MNO’s.
Our focus has been on upgrading the infrastructure by investing in new energy systems, a grid connection program, and a portfolio-wide deployment of one of an industry leading RMS platform. We have also developed a 24*7 state of the art NOC facility at our office.
To leverage these investments, Minara has also implemented new maintenance and power management outsource contracts.
Tanzania is one of Africa’s most active tower markets. Can you talk about some of the wider environmental factors (e.g. technology evolution, population growth, urbanization, MNO competitiveness) helping to drive market activity?
Tudor Samuila, Country Manager, Minara Tanzania:
Tanzania’s population is young and growing fast: 67 million people, the median age is 19 and the country has a 3% annual growth. The urbanization rate at 37% and the urban population is growing at 5% per year.
7.7 million people are living in Dar es Salaam and the city is growing 10% every year. It’s one of the fastest growing cities on the continent.
We have seen a resilient GDP Growth at 5.2% in 2023 and above 4% even during the Covid-19 Pandemic.
The mobile telecom market is growing quickly, adding between 2.5m and 3m customers every quarter. Three strong MNOs are in good competition and have a relatively balanced market share (Vodacom 30.5%, Tigo (part of the Axian Group) 28.5%, Airtel 25.8%). Halotel (part of the Viettel Group) is also in Tanzania with growing business.
The smartphone penetration is still quite low at 32%. Nevertheless, Data Traffic continues to grow by 27% per quarter.
TowerXchange: Both Towerco of Africa and Helios Towers, the two other towercos operating in Tanzania, have been busy recently raising capital for rollout and lease-up. How does Minara finance fresh capital, and have you raised any recent funding for expansion?
Tudor Samuila, Country Manager, Minara Tanzania:
Minara benefits from a fully funded business plan, and we are executing well against that plan. The shareholders will continue to fund our investments through a variety of mechanisms appropriate to the operating and expansion needs of the business.
We have a very robust decision-making process to evaluate each investment opportunity no matter the size .
TowerXchange: How important is energy access in Tanzania and what strategies are you using to tackle energy resilience, carbon reduction and cost of power?
Tudor Samuila, Country Manager, Minara Tanzania:
Uninterrupted power supply is very important to our customers as it contributes directly to their service quality. Providing this is our responsibility.
From Day One, Minara started investing in improved reliability of the energy systems on sites. We continued with an effective grid connection program, connecting more than 50% of our off grid sites to the grid.
Tanzania’s grid power is both relatively stable in terms of generation, transmission, and distribution, and low cost when compared to its regional peers.
We also started to implement energy efficient solutions for the long term off grid sites. Those include a mix of solar, hybrid or a blend, depending on the site specifics.
TowerXchange: SBA Communication’s report The independent tower industry as a key enabler of the development of African telecommunications has been widely praised for advancing the neutral host model in Africa. Can you share some of your highlights of this report and any areas that resonated with Tanzania’s telecom sector during your press launch?
Tudor Samuila, Country Manager, Minara Tanzania:
SBA Communications commissioned a study on the impact of the independent tower industry on the development of the African telecommunications space. The study was pursued by the Telecom Advisory Services, a New York based consulting firm led by Dr.Raul Katz.
In a nutshell, the study concludes that the infrastructure sharing enabled by a healthy and robust independent tower industry is contributing to the availability of broadband coverage while allowing the mobile network operators to maintain lower CAPEX intensity and a reduction in OPEX.
We launched the study in Dar es Salaam in the presence of the ICT Minister, the US Ambassador to Tanzania and representatives of the telecommunication industry – Tanzanian Communications Regulatory Authority, mobile network operators, internet service providers, tower companies and contractors.
The participants all recognized the effects that the independent tower industry had in Tanzania – improved rural coverage, fast 4G deployment, enhanced service quality. In essence, their comments reflected the findings in the report.
TowerXchange: Universal Service Funds (USFs) have a key role to play in supporting greenfield growth with MNO stretched capex, but many fail to function properly. How has the TCRA’s USF been supporting rollout in Tanzania, and what has made this successful?
Tudor Samuila, Country Manager, Minara Tanzania:
Tanzania’s Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF) was launched in 2017 and it has since supported the build of more than 1,500 towers across the country. Many recognize it as among the most successful Universal Service Funds in all of Africa.
UCSAF benefitted from a consistent legal framework, and it had maintained a transparent allocation of the funds.
The fund supports the mobile network operators to enlarge their rural coverage through subsidies that are allocated through transparent bids at site level.
A key element of the UCSAF success in Tanzania has been the presence of a strong tower industry that provided the CAPEX for Site built.
You can read SBA Communications' regulatory whitepaper by reading our executive summary as well as download the full report here.
