MTN Nigeria has said that as part of its renewed strategy to deepen its operation in Nigeria in 2012, it would be investing about $1.4 billion (N210 billion) on its network.The service provider also reaffirmed its commitment towards improving rural telephony in the country.MTN discovered in 2010, about 850 villages in the country that were yet to enjoy the boom in the telecommunications industry and subsequently signed a deal with Huawei Technologies to implement rural telephony infrastructure.Speaking during a recent interaction with journalists in Lagos, the Corporate Services Executive of the company, Mr. Wale Goodluck, said that the proposed investment represented 45 per cent of the total capital expenditure of the entire MTN Group for 2012.Goodluck explained that a significant part of the money would be invested on expanding the core and radio networks as well as building metropolitan fibre network and backhaul technology.He said that part of the $1.4 billion investment would be dedicated to deploying metropolitan fibre across the country.On the rural telephony project, Goodluck said that the company's $40 million rural telephony project had been successful and recorded the erection of 350 base stations in locations across the country.'Our rural telephony project has been quite successful. About 350 base stations under the rural telephony project are now alive and working. The way the base stations are built is different from the way others are built. The tariff plan in the rural communities is different from what we charge in other places,' he stated.Furthermore, the Corporate Service Executive added that the WACS, MTN submarine cable, which landed in Nigeria last year would go live by the end of April, 2012.According to him: 'WACS will go live at the end of April. The capacity is more than every other cable that have landed in Nigeria. It will provide more capacity, more latency and redundancy in the country.'Goodluck, who said that landing a cable at the seashore was the beginning of broadband access, lamented the lack of adequate last mile fibres to transfer the available capacity to the end users.Going forward, he said that the MTN Group was spending an enormous part of its resources in Nigeria, because the country had contributed immensely to the group's revenue.Besides, the MTN Group yearly financial results for the year ended December 31, 2011, released recently, said: 'Group revenue increased by 6.3 per cent to R121, 884m due to sound growth in Nigeria, South Africa and Iran of 4.1per cent, 7.7per cent and 20.1per cent respectively. On a constant currency basis, group revenue increased 9.7 per cent. This is meaningfully higher and more reflective of the group's operating performance. Local currency revenue growth in Nigeria, Ghana and Iran increased a healthy 9.6 per cent, 15.1per cent and 26.5 per cent respectively.Fuelled by growth in Nigeria and other key markets, the report revealled that the group subscribers base increased by 16.2 per cent to 164.5 million'The report said: 'MTN Group Limited delivered a satisfactory performance for the year growing its subscriber base by 16.2 per cent and continuing to hold a strong market position despite increasing competition and a slower economic backdrop.'Revenue was 9.7 per cent higher on a constant currency basis while earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation ('EBITDA') margin expanded 3.4 percentage points to 44.9 per cent.
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