Bharti Airtel today said it sold more than 3,500 telecom towers to Eaton Towers, an independent telecoms tower company in Africa.
The mobile service provider did not share financial details
As part of the telecom tower deal, Airtel will sell and lease back over 3,500 towers to Eaton in 6 countries across its African operations.
The 10-year contract will expand Eaton Towers’ coverage in Africa to 7 countries with over 5,000 towers.
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The Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti Airtel is also looking finalizing its telecom tower in Nigeria to sell around 3,000 sites for $1 billion this month.
Manoj Kohli, chairman, Bharti Airtel International Netherlands, said: “The deal with Eaton Towers is an extension of this philosophy and will lead to far superior utilisation of passive infrastructure and help drive the proliferation of affordable mobile services across Africa.”
Airtel, which competes with MTN, decided to sell telecom towers to Eaton Towers’ to drive cost efficiencies throughout the industry via the use of shared passive infrastructure.
Bharti Airtel is looking at reducing debt and cut its on-going capital expenditure on passive infrastructure, Airtel said in a statement.
Eaton Towers’ customers will be benefiting from lower operating costs, expanded network coverage and capacity and improved quality of service.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
