For almost 20 years, unbiased tower corporations have offered a impartial platform the place cell community operators can colocate tools, share prices, and increase protection with out proudly owning the bodily infrastructure.
That mannequin is now underneath strain following MTN’s $2.2 billion acquisition of IHS Towers.
With the deal, MTN is reclaiming strategic management over property it as soon as bought and reshaping the economics of telecom infrastructure throughout its markets. The shift might redraw the aggressive panorama, forcing rivals to depend upon infrastructure owned by their largest competitor whereas driving a broader transfer towards operator-controlled tower networks.
The consequence could reshape the impartial tower market that helped drive Africa’s cell growth.
Why MTN is shopping for again its towers
MTN’s rationale for the acquisition is rooted within the financial realities of working telecom networks in unstable markets. In accordance with its submitting on the Johannesburg Inventory Change on February 18, macroeconomic pressures, together with international trade volatility, inflation, and rising power prices, have made tower leasing more and more costly and unpredictable.
For MTN, tower possession is a strategy to regain management over a significant portion of its price base. IHS at the moment derives about 70% of its income from MTN, which means the operator has successfully been paying a margin to a 3rd celebration for infrastructure it depends on closely. Bringing these property again in-house is anticipated to unlock price financial savings and operational efficiencies.
Possession additionally permits MTN to combine its infrastructure extra tightly throughout the worth chain, from fibre and spectrum to radio websites and knowledge centres. The corporate says this integration will enhance community efficiency, assist 5G deployment, and permit higher coordination between its working corporations and infrastructure property.
In a area the place energy prices and forex swings can rapidly erode margins, controlling towers gives a hedge towards volatility. MTN argues that direct possession will enhance its means to handle dangers tied to power utilization, international trade publicity, and infrastructure rollout timelines.
However whereas the deal could make strategic sense for MTN, its implications lengthen far past one operator’s steadiness sheet.
The shift from impartial to captive towers
The rise of unbiased tower corporations was one of many defining options of Africa’s telecom growth. Operators bought towers to specialised corporations to scale back capital expenditure and concentrate on customer-facing companies. Tower corporations, in flip, leased area to a number of operators, creating economies of scale and decreasing duplication.
That mannequin relied on neutrality. Tower corporations have been anticipated to deal with all tenants equally, providing comparable pricing and repair ranges no matter which operator used their infrastructure.
IHS constructed its enterprise on this “tower sharing” mannequin. Throughout its international portfolio, it has roughly 57,691 tenancies, a determine that exceeds its whole tower depend of 39,025 towers as a result of a number of operators can share a single construction.
The important thing metric traders watch is the tenancy ratio, or colocation charge, which measures the typical variety of tenants per tower. IHS goals to have about 1.58 tenants per tower, principally one predominant buyer and roughly half of one other on every website, on common.
In idea, this shared mannequin lowers prices for everybody. A second tenant added to an current tower dramatically improves the tower firm’s margins with out requiring totally new infrastructure. For operators, colocation reduces duplication and accelerates rollout.
MTN’s acquisition challenges that assumption of neutrality. In accordance with Segun Cole, CEO of Maasai VC, a mergers and acquisitions Software program-as-a-Service platform and market, the transaction is a part of a broader shift away from unbiased infrastructure towards operator-controlled property.
“We are actually shifting from a market of unbiased TowerCos to a market of captive TowerCos,” Cole stated. “Smaller gamers or new entrants will discover it almost inconceivable to get impartial pricing.”
Even when IHS continues working as a standalone entity with its personal administration and governance construction, rivals could fear about delicate benefits for MTN. Entry to rollout schedules, upkeep priorities, or tower upgrades might all turn into strategic issues, particularly in a enterprise the place tenancy allocation and improve sequencing straight have an effect on community high quality.
On paper, MTN has dedicated to sustaining open-access rules. IHS will proceed serving all clients on an arm’s-length industrial foundation, and current agreements with tenants will stay in place. The corporate has stated IHS will retain unbiased governance and proceed pursuing third-party income.
However neutrality in observe could also be more durable to take care of than neutrality in coverage.
A nightmare state of affairs for rivals
For rival operators, the acquisition presents an uncomfortable actuality: they might quickly be renting area from their greatest competitor.
Cole describes the state of affairs as a “nightmare state of affairs” for tenants comparable to Airtel. Whereas contracts guarantee continued entry to towers, the steadiness of energy in negotiations might shift.
The problem is especially acute in Nigeria, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of IHS’s tenants and greater than 15,900 towers. The corporate’s footprint extends throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, together with roughly 5,700 towers in South Africa, 2,678 in Côte d’Ivoire, 2,500 in Cameroon, and 1,900 in Zambia, however Nigeria stays its core market.
Diseye Isoun, CEO of Content material Oasis, an web service supplier, argues that IHS Towers’ dominance makes the corporate unavoidable for operators searching for nationwide protection.
“You undoubtedly can’t cowl Nigeria by way of having a nationwide community with out utilizing IHS towers,” he stated. “So there isn’t a escape.”
Operators sometimes depend upon tower corporations not only for area however for upkeep, upgrades, and amendments to leases.
It is usually vital to tell apart between a brand new tenant and a lease modification. A brand new tenant happens when a second operator collocates on a tower. A lease modification, against this, occurs when the identical operator provides new tools, comparable to upgrading from 4G to 5G antennas.
Whereas amendments improve income for the tower firm, they aren’t counted as totally new tenancies.
If MTN prioritises its personal lease amendments and 5G upgrades throughout hundreds of its current tenancies, rivals might fear in regards to the sequencing of comparable upgrades on shared websites.
This lack of options might reinforce MTN’s market place, particularly if tower entry turns into a aggressive bottleneck.
In Nigeria, smaller tower operators comparable to Pan African Towers (764 towers) and Africa Cellular Networks (4,000 towers) handle far fewer websites, principally in area of interest or rural areas.
This focus means most cell community operators rely closely on IHS and American Tower Company (ATC), which operates 8,270 towers, for nationwide protection. Tenants on IHS towers can’t simply swap to new tower corporations as a result of towers are fastened, location-specific infrastructure and protection depends upon exact website placement, energy availability, and backhaul connectivity. Transferring to a different towerco would typically require constructing new websites close by, securing permits, and investing in new tools, which is expensive and time-consuming.
Airtel’s counter-strategy
The acquisition can be prone to set off strategic responses from rivals, notably Airtel, which is the operator most able to bearing the monetary and operational prices of migrating to various tower corporations if wanted.
Between February 5 and 10, Bharti Airtel elevated its stake in Indus Towers to simply over 51%, securing majority management of one of many world’s largest tower portfolios. The transfer displays a broader push by the operator to deepen its infrastructure autonomy.
Indus Towers has additionally begun increasing past India, establishing two new step-down subsidiaries in Nigeria and Zambia, in accordance with incorporation certificates issued on January 15, 2026.
For telecom operators, proudly owning tower property affords better management over prices, service high quality, and community rollout timelines, whereas decreasing dependence on third-party suppliers. If MTN’s integration technique proves profitable, extra operators could also be inspired to pursue comparable ownership-driven fashions.
In Nigeria, Globacom stays the one main operator that runs its tower community in-house. Its self-managed portfolio grew to eight,773.6 towers in 2024, up from 8,550 the earlier yr, making it the nation’s second-largest tower firm.
Proudly owning tower property provides operators better management over prices and rollout timelines, whereas decreasing reliance on third events. If MTN’s technique proves profitable, different operators could observe go well with.
“By bringing Indus to Nigeria, Airtel creates a protected harbour the place they personal the towers, mirroring MTN’s transfer and defending their margins,” Cole stated.
Such a shift would mark a big departure from the unbiased tower mannequin that has dominated African markets.
As a substitute of sharing infrastructure by impartial suppliers, operators might more and more construct or purchase their very own tower networks. That would cut back dependence on rivals however might additionally improve prices and duplication.
A reset for Africa’s tower trade
The acquisition additionally aligns with IHS’s ongoing effort to cut back operations exterior Africa. After promoting its property in Peru in 2024 and in Brazil and Colombia in February 2026, the corporate has sharply diminished its Latin American presence as a part of a method to strengthen its steadiness sheet and refocus on its core African markets.
With nearly all of its tenancies now concentrated in Africa, notably Nigeria, the strategic significance of those property to MTN will increase.
The long-term affect of the acquisition could depend upon how operators reply. If rivals proceed leasing towers from IHS, the impartial tower mannequin might survive in modified type. But when operators start constructing or buying their very own towers, the trade might fragment into competing infrastructure networks.
Tower sharing has lengthy helped telecom operators minimize prices, scale back environmental affect, and increase networks extra rapidly. Analysis from the Toulouse Faculty of Economics (2025/26) exhibits that sharing infrastructure can decrease each capital and working bills by 40% to 60%. A examine of 107 tower offers throughout 28 low-income international locations (2008–2020) additionally discovered that, inside two years of a significant tower-sharing settlement, the typical worth of cell knowledge fell by $1.00 per GB.
The economics of this mannequin rely closely on the tenancy ratio, the steadiness between what number of towers exist and what number of operators share them. If the trade strikes away from shared tenancy towards extra operator-owned towers, duplication might rise, driving up capital necessities throughout the sector.
But, there’s additionally a possible upside. Better management of infrastructure could assist operators differentiate their networks and enhance service high quality. A transparent instance is Jio in India, which runs the world’s largest 5G standalone community.
As a result of it owns its core community and far of its transport infrastructure, Jio can supply tailor-made community slices, ultra-low-latency connections for industrial automation, for example, or high-bandwidth lanes for client streaming.
The economics of going non-public
The transaction additionally displays broader modifications in how infrastructure property are financed.
IHS is being acquired at a valuation of $6.2 billion, considerably under its public market peak ($7 billion in 2021 when it went public on the New York Inventory Change), highlighting the challenges confronted by infrastructure corporations working in unstable markets.
For personal consumers like MTN, nevertheless, decrease valuations can symbolize a chance. Cole argues that public markets typically undervalue infrastructure corporations in rising markets due to macroeconomic volatility.
On the inventory trade, he stated, IHS was being penalised for forex fluctuations and inflation slightly than operational efficiency. By taking the corporate non-public, MTN can align funding selections with long-term community plans slightly than quarterly earnings expectations.
“Public markets commerce on headlines, whereas non-public strategists commerce on laborious property,” Cole stated.
Regulatory scrutiny forward
The acquisition is anticipated to endure regulatory scrutiny in key markets, particularly Nigeria, the place competitors considerations shall be a significant focus. The Nigerian authorities has already acknowledged that it plans to evaluation the deal.
Isoun believes regulators might want to contemplate the affect on competitors and pricing.
“In the event that they do an unbiased and impartial evaluation, it’s going to turn into very clear in a short time that this acquisition will result in extra monopoly for MTN,” he stated.
The deal comes at a time when knowledge costs and community high quality are politically delicate points. Any notion that consolidation might improve prices or scale back competitors could entice scrutiny from policymakers.
Regulators can also want to think about how the deal impacts smaller operators and web service suppliers, which rely closely on shared infrastructure. If entry to towers turns into dearer or much less predictable, smaller gamers might battle to compete.
The way forward for tower sharing
The long-term affect of the acquisition could depend upon how operators reply.
If rivals proceed leasing towers from IHS, the impartial tower mannequin might survive in modified type. But when operators start constructing or buying their very own towers, the trade might fragment into competing infrastructure networks.
That may mark a big shift from the shared infrastructure method that has outlined Africa’s telecom development.
Tower sharing has traditionally diminished prices, minimised environmental affect, and accelerated community growth. Transferring away from that mannequin might make networks dearer to construct and function.
On the identical time, better infrastructure management might enable operators to distinguish their networks and enhance service high quality.
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