by Yinka Ojo

Wael Ammar, the Commercial Officer of Etisalat Nigeria, has announced that the telecoms company will raise $500 million (about N8 billion) from national banks to enable it improve on network coverage across the country.

Speaking during the Reuters Africa Investment Summit, on Thursday, Ammar said the move is also to grow the market shares of Etisalat to 17 per cent this year, from the present mobile market shares of 15 per cent.

MTN currently has the highest market share of 43 per cent; while Globacom and Airtel possess 22 and 20 per cent respectively.

“We expect average revenues for voice traffic across the Industry to continue to decline to around $5 per user over the next 3-5 years, from around $6-7 per user currently, average revenue per user (ARPU) was $10 per user in 2008,” Ammar said. “We are investing $500 million this year to expand our network and services to Nigerian consumers.

He added that the present objective of the company is to target some 40 per cent of Nigerians who still don’t own a mobile phone.

Globacom, another telecoms service provider, recently announced a massive network expansion drive with partners, Alcatel Lucent, Huawei, ZTE and Ericsson, four of the world’s global telecommunications equipment vendors.

According to Mohammed Jameel, its Group Chief Operating Officer, the expansion “will make Globacom the number one network in terms of investment. With leading telecoms equipment vendors like Alcatel Lucent, Huawei, ZTE and Ericsson as partners, we are determined to put in place the most robust and the best voice and data network in Africa. The upgrade will lead to significant improvement in the quality of voice, increase the speed of data services and installation of new platforms for innovations in service provision.”