Phuthuma Nhleko is the Chief Executive Officer of the MTN Group (right), which is an Africa-focused holding group, involved primarily in the operation of GSM cellular telephone networks.

The group employees over 4000 people worldwide by Eddie Mukaaya transcribed his interview:

Qn: What is your reading in terms of performance for MTN next year?

Ans: Next year MTN’s challenge is not demand. It is making sure that the capacity keeps up with demand. In different countries, we face different challenges. Next year is for putting on more new significant capacities

Qn: Where are you putting the capacity?

Ans: In coverage and convergence which are all big issues. There will also be more expansion since economies of scale are every important.

Qn: Do you have some readings of figures in terms for percentage of expansion say in customer base?

Ans: Well, not yet. We are hoping that by December thid year we are going to add 17.5 million subscribers. We are busy with the business plan session.

Qn: About the southern and east African regions, where do you think much concentration should be put at? Or which areas do you think they should work on to see a creation of a larger market and growth of the subscribe numbers?

Ans: Yeah, what we need is sim-less roaming, GPRS roaming and more focus on the data. The markets are steadily growing. Like for Rwanda, it’s like over 40 per cent growth per year. That tells this market still has along way to go. So we are going to focus on that as we would like to spread our wings to other East African parts as well.

Qn: About the growth figures, I think Rwanda over the past one year grew above those figures to about up 100 per cent, from about 250,000 to about 500,000 subscribers. What does that mean for MTN? What is the message behind that?

Ans: Well, what it says is that the penetration of the tally density if put that way for Rwanda can be much higher than what it is today.

Ends