WENDEL
Outsourcing tower infrastructure to IHS allows Airtel to focus on its core business and customers; enables it to deleverage through debt reduction, and will significantly reduce its ongoing capital expenditure on passive infrastructure.
In addition, IHS will be rolling out its renewable energy solutions across the Airtel network. Already a leader in energy efficiency for mobile infrastructure across sub-Saharan Africa, IHS will roll out its diesel reduction initiatives which offset the unreliability of electrical grids and reduce diesel consumption whilst maintaining unparalleled network uptime.
Issam Darwish, Executive Vice Chairman & Group CEO of IHS, said:
'We have been working with Airtel for many years and are delighted to continue expanding our East Africa business. Our partnership is designed to further promote network sharing, and deliver higher quality and reliable mobile services. This acquisition will enable us to eventually upgrade these towers and continue to rollout innovative energy saving technology throughout the continent.'
Since Q1 2013, IHS has spent $500 million across Africa on power systems. The money has been allocated to deploy advanced generators, batteries and alternative power solutions to reduce diesel consumption. By the end of 2016, up to 80% of all IHS towers will be run on hybrid solar solutions.
Christian de Faria, MD & CEO Africa, Bharti Airtel said,
'IHS has a proven track record in telecoms infrastructure services. The initiative in Zambia will help us deliver a reliable high quality network run by passive infrastructure experts, whilst reducing our capex requirements and operating costs. The Airtel team will concentrate on serving the market, serving customers and delivering on our proposition of affordable and innovative telecom products and services.'
Transactions such as these have allowed IHS to create significant local technical and engineering employment opportunities throughout Africa. Over 95% of IHS's employees are African and IHS employs close to 40,000 people directly and indirectly through its exclusive
subcontractors.
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 333 million customers across its operations at the end of July 2015.
To know more please, visit: www.airtel.com
About IHS
IHS is the largest mobile telecommunications infrastructure provider in Africa. Founded in
2001, IHS provides services across the full tower value chain - colocation on owned towers, deployment and managed services. Today IHS has operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, Côte
d'Ivoire, Zambia and Rwanda. Following the recent acquisitions of MTN and Etisalat's tower
portfolios in Nigeria, IHS owns over 23,100 towers in Africa.
For more information, visit: www.ihstowers.com
Contact:
Carolina Desmeules or Will Anderson
Brunswick Group
+44 (0) 7568 101230 / +971 (50) 557 2633 ihs@brunswickgroup.com
|
distributed by
|
