Africa’s Tower Wars Come to Uganda: As Airtel Brings Indus and MTN Moves on IHS, What Happens to Standalone Tower Companies such as ATC and TowerCo?

For more than a decade, Africa’s leading telecommunications operators pursued an asset-light strategy: selling towers to specialist infrastructure companies, releasing capital for network expansion and customer acquisition, and becoming tenants of infrastructure they previously owned. Uganda was among the early markets to embrace this transformation. In 2011, MTN entered a tower joint venture with American Tower Corporation (ATC), transferring approximately 1,000 sites into a business in which ATC held a controlling 51% interest, and MTN retained 49%. Airtel subsequently became part of a wider African infrastructure divestment programme, agreeing in 2014 to sell more than 3,500 towers across six countries,

Muhereza Kyamutetera is the Executive Editor of CEO East Africa Magazine. I am a travel enthusiast and the Experiences & Destinations Marketing Manager at EDXTravel. Extremely Ugandaholic. Ask me about #1000Reasons2ExploreUganda and how to #TakeYourPlaceInTheAfricanSun