An unconfirmed report says that MTN Group, Africa’s biggest mobile telecom operator, “has started the process of buying closely held Visafone Communications of Nigeria, as it seeks to expand in its largest market, according to two people familiar with the matter”.
Visafone is a CDMA wireless network in Nigeria and currently has 2.2 million active subscribers. MTN Nigeria has 59.8 million active subscribers. Looking at the numbers, if MTN is really set to purchase Visafone, it does not look like it has to do with acquiring subscribers.
Neither MTN nor Visafone has made an official statement about this. However, if this acquisition happens, it is likely that MTN will shut down Visafone and convert its 700 MHz network band for 4G LTE deployment on the MTN network.
January 2016 Update: MTN did acquire Visafone. Follow the news here: CDMA is dead in Nigeria: Here is what MTN Nigeria will do with Visafone
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