Telecom major Bharti Airtel, agreed to sell more than 3,500 of its mobile phone towers in six African countries to telecommunications tower company Eaton Towers in a bid to cut costs, the company said in a statement on Monday.
Airtel has operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa.
The agreement follows Airtel’s and Eaton Towers’ strategies to drive cost efficiencies throughout the industry via the use of shared passive infrastructure.
As per the deal, Airtel will sell and lease back over 3500 towers to Eaton in six countries across its African operations under a 10-year contract.
Eaton Towers’ coverage in Africa now expands to seven countries with over 5000 towers.
The agreements will allow Airtel to focus on its core business and customers, enable it to deleverage through debt reduction, and will significantly reduce its on-going capital expenditure on passive infrastructure.
For Eaton Towers, the acquisition is a major step towards the scale needed to provide shared telecoms infrastructure solutions, with its customers benefiting from lower operating costs, expanded network coverage and capacity and improved quality of service.
The agreements are subject to statutory and regulatory approvals in the respective countries.
Commenting on the development, Manoj Kohli, Chairman, Bharti Airtel International Netherlands BV (BAIN), said: “The agreement 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.”
Alan Harper, CEO of Eaton Towers added: “This is a transformational deal which gives Eaton Towers the most diversified tower portfolio across Africa. We are proud to be chosen by Airtel as their key partner in these 6 countries.”