Hits Telecom in talks to share towers with other operators

BY AGENCIES

KUWAITI group Hits Telecom is in talks with mobile operators in Liberia and Tanzania to share towers and plans to launch nationwide services in both countries this year and also to buy another African operator.

Hits will invest about $100 million in Tanzania and $40 million in Liberia where its network is already operational in major cities, chief executive Par Eriksson told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

Eriksson said of the tower-sharing talks: "Liberia is a small number, something like 25 sites, but in Tanzania it will be hundreds of sites".

Hits has four African mobile licences -- Democratic Republic of Congo where a launch is some way off, Equatorial Guinea where it has major coverage, and Liberia and Tanzania.

"In Equatorial Guinea we are more or less done. By February, we will have 96 or 97 percent coverage of the population," Eriksson said.

"(So,) during the last half year, we have ensured we have enough funding to roll out two new operations in Liberia and then Tanzania."

"We have one licence left, DRC, which is a big country. So, this is a little bit late and we will not complete that network until 2013," Eriksson said.

Its launch in Tanzania has been delayed by a court case with Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei , which has a contract to help build a network for Hits in Tanzania.

"We will continue to be in court with them for a while," Eriksson said, declining to reveal the value of the law suit.

"We won the first case. Huawei came back and sued us for one third or less of the amount. We lost more or less half a year in 2011 because of this."

While Hits also owns mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Hits Spain and two Saudi Arabia subsidiaries -- Qanawat, a services distributor for Etihad Etisalat (Mobily), and 4Run a retail chain selling telephony services -- its focus remains on expanding in Africa.

"Our licences are in central Africa from the east coast to the west coast," said Eriksson. "We are extending our footprint in that region to be more competitive.

"We hope we will do an acquisition this year, but that will not be a licence, it will be an existing operator.

"We are in discussions in three countries. But I foresee that we will do one because I am not planning to go back to my shareholders and ask for any more financing."

When asked which of Tanzania's three big operators Hits was in talks with over site sharing, Eriksson said; "All of them. It will be a combination of two. But we also have to build our own sites (in Tanzania)," said Eriksson. "I am not afraid to even share base stations, but I think that is a little bit early in Africa."

In December, Saudi Arabia's regulator said it would issue three MVNO licences in 2012.

"If the terms are okay, we will definitely be one of the interested parties," Eriksson said.

Omani MVNOs Friendi and Renna have expressed an interest as they look to enter the Gulf's most profitable telecoms market.