Two years after it took over an existing network, Airtel Nigeria has grown its subscriber base by 31% or additional five and half million persons to hit 20 million subscribers.
Airtel Nigeria CEO and Managing Director Mr. Rajan Swaroop disclosed the growth in the company’s numbers and improvement in other indices at a Media Roundtable held Wednesday at the Lagos Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja.
Swaroop said the growth in subscriber numbers at Airtel was one of several indicators of growing customer acceptance and love of the brand that seeks as its vision to be the most loved brand in all its markets.
Traffic on the Airtel network grew by 124% since the 2010 acquisition by the Bharti Airtel Group. Airtel Nigeria is the lodestar in the 16-country African operations of Bharti Airtel with head office in Nairobi, Kenya.
The growth has also come on the back of an investment of $1.2billion (approximately N192billion) within the period, innovations in marketing as well as in the network that have positively influenced the Nigerian telecommunications landscape.
Swaroop disclosed that Airtel has launched nearly 3000 3.75G sites with presence in 150 towns and cities across Nigeria. The Airtel 3G network is now the largest such network in all of Africa, he further disclosed, as the company connects rural communities with broadband services. Airtel also offers the best Internet experience in Nigeria, the CEO added.
Airtel is investing in building additional 2000 kilometres to its existing 5000 kilometre fibre transmission network to ensure even deeper market penetration and capacity to handle its rapid subscriber growth. The Airtel Nigeria Chief Executive asserted that the existing network has capacity to take additional 10 million subscribers even as the company increases its capacity rapidly.
“We can double our existing customer base without congestion on the network,” Swaroop added.
He said this was possible because of investments on the network including a network data centre launched in Lagos in April as well as further investments to ensure additional capacity at base stations.
Source: CP-Africa
Image credit: flickr
