Telecoms overseas funding rebounds to its highest since 2019

Overseas direct funding (FDI) into Nigeria’s telecommunications sector is rebounding, pushed by improved pricing reforms, naira stability, and renewed investor confidence.

Within the first 9 months of 2025, the telecoms sector attracted $392.91 million in overseas investments, its strongest efficiency since 2019, when inflows reached $922.88 million over the identical interval, in line with new knowledge from the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics.

Since that peak, funding into the sector had been unstable, falling to an all-time low of $107.46 million in 2021, as worth controls and overseas trade volatility made long-term capital commitments more and more unattractive.

Trade gamers have lengthy blamed the decline on inflexible pricing constructions that ignored market realities, alongside Nigeria’s unstable overseas trade regime. The telecom sector is closely depending on overseas trade for the importation of community gear, software program, and core infrastructure, making forex instability a serious funding threat.

Nonetheless, a mix of coverage reforms and macroeconomic stabilisation is now reversing that development. The approval of a 50% telecom tariff hike in January 2025, coupled with improved naira stability, has helped restore investor confidence and reopened capital flows into the sector.

“The trade is now again on the trail of sustainability,” stated Gbenga Adebayo, chairman of the Affiliation of Licenced Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), the trade physique for telecom corporations.

When telecom investments fell to $80.78 million in Q1 2025, Adebayo had projected a rebound within the second half of the 12 months and into early 2026, barring new macroeconomic shocks.

“We commerce in Naira, however quite a lot of our inputs are overseas trade dependent,” he stated on the time, stressing that almost all buyers within the telecom house are deep-pocketed, affected person capital suppliers who plan primarily based on long-term certainty and regulatory stability.

The renewed overseas funding aligns with over $1 billion in recent infrastructure spending unlocked in 2025, in line with the Nigerian Communications Fee (NCC). In August 2025, its govt Vice Chairman, Aminu Maida, stated the tariff adjustment alone had modified investor sentiment.

Growing capital influx is already translating into concrete infrastructure enlargement throughout main operators. MTN Nigeria greater than tripled its capital expenditure to ₦757.4 billion ($527.08 million) within the first 9 months of 2025, marking its largest infrastructure funding push in years because it accelerates community enlargement, capability upgrades, and repair high quality enhancements.

Between Q2 and This fall 2025, Airtel Nigeria invested $166 million and introduced an extra $120 million funding in a 38-megawatt hyperscale knowledge centre at Lagos’ Eko Atlantic, scheduled to open in 2026.

For regulators, the rebound confirms the hyperlink between pricing reform and infrastructure funding.