Airtel to exit Africa within a year

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Bharti Airtel said it will be exiting 15 African countries including Chad, Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia within a year.

The company has been battling with poor performance across those markets. If I am to open my records, I could recall that two years ago, Airtel began talks of sell off its operations in Burkina Faso,

Chad, Congo Brazzaville and Sierra Leone to Orange but the company refuted the claim of exiting Africa.

Bloomberg actually stated that Airtel “is considering mergers or stake sales at some of its Africa operations as it looks to cut debt and make its biggest overseas acquisition profitable.”

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, according to Mr. Mittal, the chairman of Bharti Airtel, the process would be completed within a year and would affect some of Bharti’s businesses in 15 African nations, including Nigeria.

Airtel recorded a great loss of about $91 million in the third quarter of 2016. So in order to lessen the debt, Airtel is in the view selling off a stake in Bharti Infratel Ltd., its tower unit. Although, decision is yet to be taken on whether the sale of a minority stake or control of the tower unit pay off.

This could the major reason why Airtel is yet to launch 4G LTE network in Nigeria leaving them behind among other big 3 telecom operators within the country.

I hope Recession in Nigeria is not affecting Airtel badly.