Investment Inflow into Telecom Sector Plunges by 61%

By Umar Suleiman

Investment in the Nigerian telecommunications sector dropped to $111.91 million in the first three quarters of 2023, down 61.22 per cent from $288.55 million in the same period of 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

This coincides with a dry period for foreign investments in Nigeria, as total foreign investments into the country fell by 33.99 per cent to $2.82 billion in the period under review from $4.27 billion in the same period of 2022, signifying investors apathy to the country.

Commenting on the total foreign investments into the country, the NBS said, “In Q3 2023, total capital importation into Nigeria stood at $654.65 million, lower than $1.16 billion recorded in Q3 2022, indicating a decline of 43.55 per cent.

“In comparison to the preceding quarter, capital importation fell by 36.45 per cent from $1.03 billion in Q2 2023. Other Investment ranked top accounting for 77.56 per cent ($507.77m) of total capital importation in Q3 2023, followed by portfolio investment with 13.31 per cent ($87.11m) and foreign direct investment with 9.13 per cent ($59.77m).”

The slowdown in foreign investments is happening despite increasing rollouts in 4G and 5G networks.

According to telcos, the paucity of forex is not necessarily slowing down their investments.

One of the telcos, MTN Nigeria, stated, “Despite the paucity of forex, we continued to invest in the capacity and coverage of our network, focusing on the 4G and 5G networks. Capex increased by 6.9 per cent to N405 billion, reflecting the impact of the currency devaluation.”

The firm stated that it “signed a $125 million trade facility with Access Bank UK and raised N125 billion through commercial paper in line with our funding strategy to support capex deployment”.

Foreign investment into the telecoms space is set to fall for the second successive year after falling by 46.89 per cent to $399.91 million in 2022 from $753.05 million in the previous year.