MTN’s 30-Million-Home Mega Plan
MTN Bets on Home Broadband: Telecom Giant Targets 30 Million African Households
MTN Group is pivoting its growth strategy toward the African household, aiming to connect between 20 million and 30 million homes across the continent over the next five years. The telecom giant believes that reliable home internet is poised to become its single largest growth engine as digital activity shifts away from mobile-only usage.
Speaking during an investor call on Monday, MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita highlighted a structural shift in how African consumers and small businesses use connectivity, noting an increasing demand for stable, high-capacity broadband.
“We see a material home opportunity of 20 to 30 million homes connected by MTN using different technologies,” Mupita told investors. “A lot of the investment over the last three decades has been about mobility… but over time, we think homes will account for a predominant share of digital workloads.”
The Shift from Mobile to ‘Digital Workloads’
For decades, African telecom investment centered on mobile coverage. However, the pandemic underscored the limitations of smartphones for remote work, education, and entertainment. MTN’s new push positions connectivity, fintech, and digital infrastructure as the three core pillars of its future growth.
In Nigeria, MTN’s largest market, the strategy is already yielding results:
- Broadband Growth: Added over 281,000 home users in Q3 2025 alone.
- Investment: Fibre expansion costs have climbed to approximately ₦1 trillion (~$715 million).
A ‘Technology-Agnostic’ Approach
To reach its 30-million-home target, MTN will not rely on a single solution. Instead, the company plans to deploy a mix of technologies based on local market economics:
- Fixed Wireless Access (FWA): Leveraging existing mobile towers to deliver home internet quickly and cost-effectively.
- Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH): Investing in high-speed fibre for dense urban areas requiring maximum bandwidth.
“The right technology that will generate the right economics is the technology we will use,” Mupita stated. “We are not particularly precious about a specific technology.”
Closing the ‘Data Gap’
The home broadband push is also designed to solve a major revenue challenge: low data consumption. Currently, MTN subscribers use an average of 12 gigabytes (GB) per month. In comparison, users in markets like India consume nearly 30GB at similar price points.
Mupita argued that this gap exists because of a lack of services that keep people online. By moving into the home, MTN aims to unlock new revenue streams from:
- Digital Services: Streaming, gaming, and online education platforms.
- SME Tools: Helping small traders manage inventory and digital payments.
- Fintech Integration: Linking home connectivity with MTN’s mobile money ecosystem.
Looking Ahead
The expansion is a key component of MTN’s wider strategic review completed last year. By investing heavily in data centers and fibre networks, the company is betting that the “informal” business sectors in markets like Nigeria and Ghana will soon transition to fully digital tools, driven by the phone and the home router.
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