MTN has grand ambitions. It hopes to expand its reach beyond South Africa with a bid for one of Ethiopia’s new telecoms licences, lodged on 26 April. In so doing, it partnered with large Chinese government financiers: the Belt and Road Initiative known as the Silk Road Fund.
And MTN hopes to grow its offer into a payments and communication ecosystem that rivals those offered by China’s WeChat, or Apple or Facebook, and other US tech giants.
This will require raising of new funds from investors, taking on other rivals in Africa like Orange, and investing heavily in fibre optic infrastructure. The firm’s chief executive officer Ralph Mupita explains why the dividend was suspended, and how they will exit from their Middle East markets, which have brought MTN an entanglement with the US Justice Department…
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You chose to separate mobile money from your other operations? Why?
Ralph Mupita:
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