Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is one of the world’s fastest growing mobile telephone markets. The mobile penetration rate has exploded from 0.5% in 2001 to 35% in 2008. This increase represents about 50m new subscribers over a 7 year period. The market continues to grow by 15-20% bringing huge developmental benefits, but requires significant continued investment in mobile telephony infrastructure.

Established in 2006 Helios Towers Nigeria (“HTN”) is an independent operator of wireless tower sites throughout Nigeria. It builds and leases space on its communications towers to local mobile phone operators. This enables mobile operators to avoid the expense of developing and maintaining their own tower network, and reduces the costs passed on to the consumer.

Helios Towers operates a co-location model where each tower can be leased by up to six individual service providers at one time. This cost sharing arrangement limits the number of new telecom towers that need to be developed and reduces tower density and the impact on local communities.

Helios Fund Managers has supported the expansion of HTN in three separate rounds of financing and owns 27% of the business. HTN has over 400 towers throughout Nigeria in both residential and commercial areas and 100 coming on line shortly. Another 500 are planned for 2009.

Each site has back-up power generators to ensure a constant electricity supply to the towers, which is crucial in a country where black-outs are still common place. Helios Towers’ 99% uptime rate (compared with the current industry average of ~ 70%) ensures that the growing numbers of Nigerians that have access to mobile phones can use them for business and personal connections with less frequent cut-offs.

Employment at HTN has increased by 100 (to 188) since 2006, when Helios first invested in the company. Local workers are employed to assist the technical contractors in the construction work and are also hired as security personnel for the tower sites.

With the continued growth and increasing importance of mobile telephony in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa, HTN is currently looking to expand its operations into other parts of Africa.

1 From year-end 2008, except for when stated otherwise
2 US$52m invested by Helios. CDC’s investment in Helios Investors LP Fund I is US$50m; total fund size US$304m.
3 2006-2008
4 2007-2008