Ralph Mupita, Group President and CEO, MTN
Africa’s resilience: The MTN story is truly a story about Africa and Africa's potential, as well as Africa's resilience. It's a story about how technology truly empowers people and enables Africa to leapfrog some of the challenges the continent has faced.The network opportunity in Africa: The African continent is a youthful continent. By 2050, Africa will have the majority of the workforce. Today, internet usage is at about 30%. The coverage gap is not an issue anymore, but we still suffer from the usage gap. We anticipate that another 250 million Africans will be attached to networks over the next five years, living more empowered lives. Innovate to deliver ROI: We're making the economics work for us with $2 to $3 average revenue per user. We have very limited means to build our networks and provide our services with quite limited revenue. I often talk to CEOs, particularly US CEOs, who talk about $60 ARPU. And I'm saying all I have is $3, but I must deliver the same return. So, we have to think very innovatively about how we embrace and bring the technologies together. Beyond connectivity as a platform: The telco business has served us well in its integrated sense, but the future is really about the future of platforms. We see connectivity and services beyond connectivity as a platform, serving consumers, enterprise, and providing wholesale services. Data management that benefits Africa: Data is expected to grow threefold over the next five years, so we need to take this data traffic through our fibre networks and create the resilience our digital infrastructure and ecosystems will need. We are looking at our data centre/ta estate, positioning it for the AI revolution's impact on the African continent, ensuring AI-ready data centers and market positions that will benefit Africa.