Airtel Africa has announced the renewal of its tower lease agreement with US-based international towerco American Tower Corporation (ACT) for a 12-year extension of approximately 7,100 sites across Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Niger.
These sites were originally sold to both ATC and Eaton Towers between 2015 – 2016, which ATC since acquired in 2020), and were set for renewal in the next 12-24 months. The contract was signed on 30th September 2024 for a total lease valuation of US$1.2bn.
Within these agreements is a focus on renewable energy solutions, particularly in Nigeria. This initiative aims to reduce dependency on diesel fuel and lower operating costs. Airtel Africa reported that fuel price increases contributed to a fall in EBITDA margin from 49.6% to 45.8% over H1 2024. In Nigeria, petrol prices have increased by over 400% since May 2023.
The renewals ensure that they will continue to benefit from contract structures including the proportion linked to foreign currency, with Airtel Africa noting a 16.5% decline in reported currency (around US$215mn).
The operators’ investor presentation highlighted that it is working with its towerco partners to improve uptime, expand the network into rural areas to tap customer growth, and drive optimisation to improve customer experience and unlock latent demand.
Airtel Africa’s network rollout has increased from 26,751 sites in H1 2022 to 35,961 by H1 2024 now, supporting an increase in data capacity from 13,751 TB/day to 33,960. This is to meet rapidly increasing data usage per customer from 3.3 - 6.6 over the same period.
93% of Airtel Africa’s US$316mn capex expenditure was allocated towards growth capex for coverage (27%) and capacity (62%), to drive the deployment of new sites for additional coverage and capacity enhancement. 96.6% of sites are now upgraded to 4G with over 1,200 5G sites operational across 5 markets.
Officials have indicated that the new agreements are separate from an ongoing investigation by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Competition Commission into potential anti-competitive practices involving Airtel and ATC which has yet to be resolved.
