Nigeria - Zain investment plans

Nigeria: Zain Plans 1 Billion U.S. Dollars Annual Injection Till 2011

Zain telecommunication, the mega network that recently emerged from Celtel Nigeria, has concluded further expansion plan under which $1billion would be invested into the company's operations annually until 2011.

Announcing this in Ibadan, Oyo State, capital yesterday while introducing the ZaiN brand to the South-West zone, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the telecommunication giant, Mr. Bayo Ligali, said that "the change to ZaiN would bring a lot of benefits to Nigerians aside from being part of one big family - one network - spread across Africa and (the) Middle East."

He said: "The ZaiN Group is recognized as the pre-eminent company in the Middle East and Africa and currently has 13,000 employees, with 2,500 from Nigeria alone. It also offers a range of advanced mobile voice and data services to over 50 million customers with over 15 million from Nigeria, while customers from the country would now benefit directly from a recognized global brand."

He said that plans to further invest $1billion yearly until 2011 would enable the company to maintain its leadership position in the market in terms of coverage, capacity and quality. He explained that besides the $1.01 billion paid for 65 per cent equity in Vmobile in 2006, the group had already invested additional $2 billion dollars in the Nigerian market and "will continue to invest to make the company the best in the industry."

He told newsmen that ZaiN had already committed $200 million to the 4,000 fibre optic cable for transmission throughout the country to upgrade services, stressing that by the time all these facilities are in place the company's share market would increase tremendously.

On the benefits of the change from Celtel to ZaiN, he said that it would ultimately impact positively on the cost of operations which would decrease due to the economies of scale of being a member of a large global ZaiN Group "as we negotiate better and pay less for equipment and other resources."

For example, he said, the ultra-low cost handsets launched a few months ago, which is the world's first handset could not have been possible without the power of Zain.

"Since 2006, when we joined the (Zain) Group, we have grown our base stations with over 200 per cent and our subscriber base has grown from 5.4million then to over 15million as I speak, effectively making us No. 2 and a contending No. 1," the CEO stated.

Speaking further, he declared that another benefit of Zain was that more job opportunities would be created for Nigerians as the network expanded. "We currently employ 2,500 people directly and another 10,000 indirectly through our dealers' outlets. The engineering, construction, security, advertising, media and printing industries would continue to be major beneficiaries of our operations," he posited, adding that diesel and generator sellers' businesses account for over 65 per cent of the organisation's running costs.