South African-based multinational telecommunications company

South Africa telecom giant MTN group is currently experiencing one of the most successful eras in the company’s history. The MTN Group is in the right place at the right time. Africa’s appetite for telecommunications technology has never been stronger, mobile phone use is growing at unprecedented rates and everyone from Swaziland to the Zulu Nation is tweeting away.

Since 2004, Africa has been the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world. To illustrate: in 2005, the MTN Group had 14 million subscribers. Today, there are over 123 million subscribers on the MTN networks, and analysts are expecting its second-quarter report, which will include its World Cup spike, to be even higher.

In Namibia and its neighbouring countries, cellular use has exceeded estimations by a long shot. There are close to 500 million active SIM cards currently in Africa—a number that is expected to rise to 800 million in five years.

In this business climate, it is no surprise the MTN Group announced in July, 2010, that it had “maintained or grew its market share in most of its jurisdictions,” and that the company foresees “significant growth to be had across its footprint and the demographics of the markets also support this.”

With a corporate strategy centred on consolidation and diversification; leveraging its footprint and intellectual capacity; and convergence and operational evaluation, the MTN Group is in a very advantageous position in the South African and African telecommunications sector.
Services

As the leader in telecommunications in Africa and the Middle East, MTN is active in 21 countries. MTN offers a variety of unique services for mobile phones and data packages to keep clients connected and in business. The functionality for the mobile phone has expanded, and with it the MTN Group services have grown to include Mobile Banking, Mobile TV, International roaming, data solutions, Blackberry technology, music and more.

BEE

As part of its on-going empowerment drive, in July, the MTN Group unveiled a proposed Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) transaction to be executed through its South African local listing.

“BEE is integral to the ethos of MTN, and MTN believes that broad-based BEE participation is important to its future success as a Group,” said Phuthuma Nhleko, MTN President and CEO. The transaction will further broaden MTN South Africa’s effective BEE ownership through a public offer to Black individuals and groups, and will reasonably take MTN’s effective indirect BEE ownership level in South Africa beyond 30 per cent when combined with MTN’s previous BEE initiatives.

MTN unveils first-of-its-kind tri-generation plant to produce power, recycle water

In an effort to increase savings for MTN through the development of a self-sustaining power supply initiative, a team of engineers at MTN’s Network Group came up with a unique solution—a 2-megawatt (MW), methane-driven tri-generation plant, which is the first of its kind on the African continent.

Speaking at the unveiling of the plant at MTN’s 14th Avenue, Fairlands, campus on August 2, Karel Pienaar, managing director of MTN SA, stated that, in the current climate, there is greater pressure on companies to do more with less in a responsible and sustainable way.

“With our ‘Greening 14th Avenue’ project, we are making a concerted effort to ensure that all our business practices are aligned to a sustainable, cost-cutting model that will reduce our carbon footprint. We needed to ensure that the company’s expansion and growth plans were not hampered by energy shortages or a lack of the power supply we require at the MTN campus to drive the business forward. Our challenge was to look at what was available versus what we needed, and come up with a plan to connect the two.”

“The tri-generation plant is the result of a unique solution to meet our strategic objectives. It will generate electricity and, through a second re-absorption chiller cycle using the waste heat, will generate water for the air-conditioning systems in our buildings,” explains Pienaar. “The idea of using methane gas to generate energy got us all thinking and the tri-generation power plant is the end result.”

By generating its own power, the MTN Group is now in a position to plan its own grid to roll-out its services to areas where they are needed. As a spin-off, the plant will produce an estimated 800kW of cooling for free, resulting in further savings in the building’s air conditioning processes.

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