Etisalat has filed a lawsuit against South Africa’s MTN over its acquisition of Nigerian CDMA operator Visafone, noting fears that the target’s 800MHz spectrum would unfairly benefit an already dominant player.
Etisalat (ADX:ETISALAT) has filed a lawsuit against South Africa’s MTN (JSE:MTN) over its acquisition of Nigerian CDMA operator Visafone. The deal completed in January for an undisclosed price.
The UAE-based operator is concerned that access to Visafone’s 800MHz spectrum will unfairly benefit market leader MTN.
MTN had 63 million subscribers in Nigeria as of September 2015, while Visafone had some two million, according to Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) data. Etisalat, for its part, has around 23 million customers, while Globacom and Airtel have around 31 million apiece.
Announcing the deal in January, MTN Nigeria CEO Amina Oyagbola said it would enhance MTN’s ability to provide higher quality broadband in line with the country’s national broadband plan.
She also described the acquisition as illustrative of “MTN’s commitment to Nigeria”, where it is facing a US$3.9bn fine for failing to switch off unregistered SIM cards.
The local subsidiary, which provides 37% of MTN’s total revenue, is on track to report NgN190bn (US$955m) in FY 2015 profit before tax, the parent company confirmed in January.