Airtel Africa, the parent body of Airtel Nigeria, has commended the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)http://ncc.gov.ng for the transparent manner it conducted the 5G licence auction conducted on Monday, December 13, 2021.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya, who gave the commendation in a statement, confirmed that the Nigerian subsidiary of the company pulled out of the auction after submitting its final bid of $270m.
According to the Airtel Africa CEO, “The business case for 5G across all sub-Saharan markets is evolving, and we remain committed to driving broadband capacity in our various markets. We will continue to closely track the 5G ecosystem over the next several years, in particular the availability of affordable 5G devices and relevant use cases.
“Airtel Africa retains ample capacity, spread across various spectrum bands, in Nigeria and its other markets, to continue to meet the growing data demands of our customers for many years to come, with several potential routes available to the business to deliver even greater capacities, cost-effectively, in the long run”.
The 5G licence auction, which took place in Abuja earlier this week saw MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications emerged as the winners of the available lots of the 3.5GHz spectrum for 5G service delivery. Airtel as the third bidder had slugged it out with the other contenders until the 11th round when it ended its bid at $270 million.
MTN and Mafa Communications closed the deal to pay $273 million each for the licence. According to the NCC, the winners are expected to pay the bid price on February 23, 2022, at the prevailing official naira value.
The first round of the auction started at a price of $199, 347,256, second round closed at $201,367,740 million, the third at $204,388,256, the fourth at $209,497,962.50, the fifth at $215,782,901.38, the sixth at $224,414,217.43, seven round at $231, 146,643.96, eight round, $240.392,509.71, round nine at $251,210,176.65, round ten at $263,017,050.77 million, round eleven closed at $275,904,886.25 million.
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