There are four MNOs in the DRC with Orange, Airtel and Vodacom all having around 30% market share each, and Africell at 10% but growing. Despite the extremely challenging operating environment, the DRC has become one of the most active tower markets in Africa due to the huge demand for new infrastructure.
Mobile penetration sits at just 54.9% and subscribers are projects to grow from 56mn in 2023 to 99mn by 2033, mostly by low-cost data packages and mobile money services. Low tower penetration, three financially healthy and active MNOs, and plenty of room for scale has made the market very competitive.
Helios Towers has three new competitors in what was once a single market towerco; Eastcastle Infrastructure entered in 20202 and has become highly active deploying over 800 towers in around two years, TowerCo of Africa has now set up its licensing framework and is bidding for new tower contracts, and rural specialists AMN and NuRAN have a combined contract pipeline of 2,500 sites to deploy for Orange. Standard Telecom, a local ISP and fibre, own 23 large broadcast towers.
While hungry for new infrastructure, there has been recent tension between MNOs and the DRC government, who is pushing operators to pay an extra US$585mn through to 2030, which will have an impact on capex budgets for further infrastructure rollout.
Orange and Vodacom, while mostly tenanting on towerco sites, both own several strategic towers (under 200 each) which they did not want to hand over due to competition concerns in the market.
However, these sites are nearly all shared as the government has been mandating infrastructure sharing to avoid monopolisation. This has been partly why Vodacom and Orange have been partnered with other towercos, as there was a view of overreliance on Helios Tower as the previously only tower provider in the market.
The DRC’s huge geographic size and lack of underlying transportation infrastructure makes it one of the world’s most challenging markets to operate in. The local ecosystem is also underdeveloped and is largely reliant on imports for equipment.
This means that lead times are commonly over 6 months and cost of new builds are high, but rapid growth in data consumption and a competitive market means that tenancy revenues are high. There is also a lack of local talent availability, and operational practices on-site are often poor.
Energy is a massive challenge in the DRC, with the national grid extending little beyond urban areas and poor underlying infrastructure stretching fuel supply chains. Solarisation has become extensive and is helping mitigate both energy costs and generator run-time. Helios Towers and Eastcastle are solarising all their sites, and TowerCo of Africa is planning 100% solar greenfield site installations.
