Africa-Press – South-Africa. Telecom tower infrastructure company Helios Towers, which entered the SA market around three years ago, is banking on the growth of mobile connectivity in Africa to drive its growth plans.
The UK-based company formed a partnership with Vumatel to build wireless and fixed-line infrastructure in South Africa in 2019.
On Thursday, the entity said its 8% jump in revenue in the 2021 financial year to $449.1 million (~R6.6 billion) was in part boosted by the acquisition of tower portfolios in Senegal and Madagascar.
The company aims to close the acquisition of Airtel Africa’s passive infrastructure operating companies in Madagascar and Malawi during the 2022 financial year.
CEO Kash Pandya said the Malawi transaction was likely to close in the next two weeks.
Helios Towers owns and operates telecommunication tower sites in Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Ghana, South Africa, Senegal, and Madagascar.
The company cited current growth levels among South Africa’s major network providers, Vodacom and MTN, including their plans to invest in infrastructure development, as indicators of growth in the market.
“Our markets are engines of growth, particularly in the telecoms sector. The dynamics of our markets across Africa and the Middle East are significantly rising population, urbanisation, [and] a very young population, which drives demand in mobile services – particularly data and large GDP growth. You can combine that with low mobile penetration,” said Tom Greenwood, the company’s CEO-designate.
Greenwood’s forecast suggests that there will be 63 million new mobile connections over the next five years across Helios’ markets.
The new connections drive the need for more mobile tenants, as companies expand their networks for data services.
“All of this drives growth; we are very excited about the organic growth potential as we look over the next five years and beyond,” said Greenwood.
During the 2021 financial year, Helio increased its number of its sites by a record 2 204 year-on-year to 9 560.
Cash generated from operations decreased by 7% to $195.9 million.
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