By Chinenye Anuforo, [email protected]
Nigeria, despite being acclaimed as the giant of Africa, would have just been an isolated community bereft of a footbridge without a reliable digital communication structure. Before digital telecommunication companies ventured into the country, the analogue infrastructure for communication had become obsolete, fraught with poor services and needing an immediate influx of innovation.
During the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the narrative for communications changed in Nigeria. On May 16, 2001, MTN Nigeria, a part of Africa’s leading cellular telecommunications MTN Group, became the first GSM network to make a call in Nigeria after obtaining the license to operate for $285m. With approval from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the company launched full commercial operations beginning with three major cities: Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. The company’s digital microwave transmission backbone – the 3,400 kilometre Y’elloBahn – was inaugurated by former Obasanjo in January 2003 and it was the most extensive digital microwave transmission infrastructure in all of Africa.
Since the company’s inception in Nigeria over 20 years ago, MTN has recorded incredible feats across several areas while propelling itself to heritage status within the country. Its 20th anniversary in Nigeria was followed by a groundbreaking decision to facilitate a total brand refresh, ushering in a new chapter in its storied history. As the company primes subscribers for a new era, we take a look at the unmissable milestones in its eventful stint in Nigeria.
Securing wider coverage
Following its inception in the country, MTN invested approximately US$1.8 billion in building modern mobile telecommunications infrastructure in Nigeria for better service. The company became a dominant factor in Nigeria’s mobile telecommunications system and its reputation for wide coverage became synonymous with the brand slogan “Everywhere You Go.”
Over the years, the company steadily deployed its services across Nigeria, reaching no fewer than 223 cities and towns. More than 10,000 villages and communities and a growing number of highways across the 36 states are connected to the world of telecommunications. With a focus on efficiency and total network coverage, MTN has a 2G, 3G, and 4G population coverage of 89.8%, 82.5% and 70.3%, respectively. The company also boasts over 17,000 base stations; 15 switching centres; over 30,000 km of fibre; over 1 million retail touchpoints, and over 769,500 registered mobile money agents.
Impact on content distribution
By 2014, MTN became the largest distributor of music in Nigeria through its highly subscribed ringback tones (RBT) popularly known as “caller tunes’’ (which was launched in 2008 as a revenue stream for the company.) It was at this juncture that the company’s evolution – as the necessary digital footbridge to link the people with opportunities – began to manifest.
MTN also developed a music app – MTN Music Plus, for all Android users to help them search and download their favourite songs with ease. This represented a digital solution to the age-long challenge of piracy in Nigeria. While e-distribution had yet to catch on, makeshift city stores were the storehouses for pirated CDs or DVDs which continually denied artists the financial benefits of their intellectual property. But with the advent of digital streaming platforms, Nigerian musicians were and can earn a living from their music through MTN’s music-related value-added services.
Advancing ambition 2025
Indeed, the MTN network evolved from being available to being dependable by enhancing the quality of the service provided to customers. The company recently announced its plan with ‘Ambition 2025’ – intending to lead digital solutions for Africa’s progress. This strategy informed the company’s brand refresh, symbolised by a new logo, with the intent to transform the MTN business from a telco to a digital-first company.
While unveiling the new brand logo at the MTN Refresh event recently, the Chief Marketing Officer, MTN Nigeria, Adia Sowho described the new black and yellow logo as ‘minimalist.’
“The logo has been simplified so that our identity can sit more comfortably in the spaces we occupy as well as the spaces we share with others. Our platforms will be a lot more engaging and interactive and they’ll be asking us some questions. The questions are designed to elicit that energy so that we can go out there and capture the opportunity. We remain an inclusive brand for the young and the old; for city dwellers as well as those who live in the countryside,” she declared.
As the company executes its Ambition 2025 strategy by shifting away from being a telco to a pan-African technology company, it embraces its capability as an integrated African digital platform company with this brand refresh to mark a new beginning for Africans.
The most prominent change is in the logomark itself, where the oval is not bound by a square box, no italics, no red underscore while replacing the solid colour of the oval with black MTN font against the yellow background. The new logo is an affirmation that MTN is a digital citizen, open to change, young at heart, inviting, digitally dynamic and progressive.
MTN’s march for financial inclusion and equal opportunities
As a company that places a premium on bridging the digital and financial divide, furthering inclusion and advancing the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, to eradicate poverty amongst other zimperatives, MTN is a centrifuge of business activities to support governments, communities and customers. Nigeria has the highest proportion of financially excluded adults in sub-Saharan Africa at 36% for men and 24% for women, according to a report by EFInA, a UK government-funded organisation. These figures represented huge stress areas for MTN, and the company used these insights to create financial solutions that would go on to signal its pivot as a “digital citizen” looking to drive Africa’s progress.
Since the launch of MTN MoMo four years ago, the service has added over 370,000 agents and doubled active users to over 9.4 million, according to Quartz Africa. The Central Bank of Nigeria recently granted MTN Nigeria approval in principle to operate a Payment Service Bank (PSB), which is expected to accelerate the company’s solutions to support the federal government’s financial inclusion strategy.
Following its pioneering listing as the first telecommunications company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, MTN delivered a landmark offer in December 2021 to retail investors with the introduction of the Primary Offer App. Using the digital platform that paves way for investors into the capital market, MTN sold 14% of its shares to drive local participation in the ownership of the company. In the end, the primary offer was oversubscribed by 139%, broadening the shareholder base. MTN thus pioneered a tech-driven revolution in Nigeria’s capital market and for the first time, more women investors were recorded in the capital market for the MTN brand.
Gearing Up for Fifth Generation Network (5G)
MTN Nigeria made an audacious move in December 2021, when it secured a 5G license out of the two auctioned by the Nigerian Communications Commission. 5G offers faster data speeds, lower latency and greater capacity than 4G LTE networks. It is one of the fastest technologies the world has seen in recent years and its features translate to quicker downloads and better connectivity, significantly changing how we live, work, interact, and play.
Speaking in an interview on Arise TV’s Global Business Report, the MTN Group CEO, Ralph Mupita indicated what the telco will achieve with the spectrum license, “We have often said that the shift from 4G to 5G is as revolutionary as the shift from 2G to 3G. 5G brings us a whole new world of opportunities because of the low latency and applications that will now be able to be captured by businesses such as ourselves. What is exciting for us are the industrial applications that come with 5G, the ability for companies to use high tech in how they run businesses. People talk about web 3.0, the metaverse. 5G enables a lot of that.”
In 2021, Nigeria had 108.75 million internet users, according to Statista. The internet penetration amounted to 51.44 per cent of the population in 2021 and is set to reach 59.92 per cent in 2026 – cementing the country’s status as a hub for innovation and digital solutions. As such, MTN’s transition to a digital citizen could not have been initiated at a better time. The brand is set to provide digital solutions to a country clamouring for digital innovations while harnessing the boundless bottom-line opportunities in Nigeria and indeed Africa.