That is Half 4 (and the ultimate half) of our 4 Half sequence masking Airtel’s FY26 Outcomes. Learn Half 1, Half 2, and Half 3.
If you happen to had advised an African telco govt in 2015 that inside a decade, MTN, Vodacom and Airtel can be brazenly sharing fibre networks and tower infrastructure, they’d have laughed. These corporations have spent 20 years preventing one another for spectrum, prospects and market share.
Buried in Airtel Africa’s FY26 outcomes launched on Friday is the quiet proof that one thing has basically modified. In simply twelve months, Airtel signed three main infrastructure-sharing partnerships and two satellite tv for pc offers that, taken collectively, mark a structural shift in how African telecommunications really works.
For Kenyan readers, this issues greater than it appears to be like at first look.
The offers, so as
March 2025: Airtel and MTN introduced community infrastructure sharing in Uganda and Nigeria. These are MTN’s two largest markets and two of Airtel’s most strategically vital. Sharing means tower websites and fibre routes, the costliest infrastructure both firm owns. Each corporations confirmed they’re exploring related preparations in Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda and Zambia.
Could 2025: A primary cope with SpaceX, bringing Starlink broadband connectivity to Airtel prospects in enterprise, faculties and well being centres throughout rural Africa.
August 2025: A strategic infrastructure-sharing settlement with Vodacom Group masking Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, plus entry to worldwide bandwidth in Mozambique. The deal initially focuses on fibre networks and tower infrastructure, with each operators citing the price of duplicate 5G rollouts as the driving force.
December 2025: A second SpaceX deal, this time bringing Starlink Direct-to-Cell satellite tv for pc connectivity to plain smartphones throughout all 14 of Airtel’s African markets. We lined the Direct-to-Cell announcement when it landed, and the implications for Kenya particularly had been important even then.
5 main partnerships in twelve months. Three of them with corporations that, in some other context, are direct rivals.
Why the economics flipped
The logic is easy, and it has been constructing for some time. Constructing a nationwide telecommunications community is dear. Constructing one throughout 14 nations, as Airtel does, is staggeringly costly. Constructing 5G particularly, which requires denser website grids and way more fibre backhaul than 4G ever did, has pushed these prices into territory no single operator can comfortably take in.
Diesel stress is making this worse. As we famous in our headline protection of Airtel’s FY26 numbers, CEO Sunil Taldar warned that vitality prices from the Iran-Israel-United States battle will stress margins within the close to time period. African telcos run 1000’s of base stations on diesel as a result of grid energy is unreliable. When gas prices rise, the price of operating a replica parallel community turns into unsustainable quick.
The maths has shifted. As a substitute of each operator constructing duplicate towers down the identical rural street, two operators conform to share one tower. As a substitute of laying parallel fibre routes, they trench as soon as and lease capability to one another. The price financial savings circulation straight to working margins.
Airtel CEO Taldar made this level explicitly within the FY26 commentary. Price effectivity is likely one of the group’s six strategic pillars, and infrastructure sharing is the lever that delivers it at scale.
What this implies for Kenya particularly
That is the place the image will get attention-grabbing for Kenyan readers, and it has not been getting sufficient consideration.
Vodacom is likely one of the events within the Airtel sharing settlement signed in August 2025. Vodacom can be, as of Parliament’s approval on the finish of FY26, about to change into the controlling shareholder of Safaricom, holding 55% after shopping for 15% from the Kenyan authorities and 5% from Vodafone Group. Efficient 1 April 2026, pending Central Financial institution of Kenya and Competitors Authority approval.
So the identical multinational telco group is now the controlling shareholder of Safaricom Kenya and an infrastructure-sharing companion of Airtel Africa in Tanzania, DRC and Mozambique. That has not but translated into something operational in Kenya. Nevertheless it units up a structural backdrop that didn’t exist earlier than. In future, if Vodacom decides shared infrastructure is a continent-wide precedence, the dialog about whether or not Safaricom and Airtel ever cooperate on towers in Kenya stops being theoretical.
For now, Safaricom and Airtel stay exhausting rivals in Kenya. As we famous in Half 3 of our protection, Airtel is now brazenly attacking Safaricom on residence broadband pricing, each on 5G fastened wi-fi and on its newly launched Xstream Fibre product. The intent is to win, to not share.
However the satellite tv for pc angle adjustments the calculus too. By partnering with Starlink for Direct-to-Cell protection, Airtel has successfully outsourced the rural-coverage downside that has traditionally been Safaricom’s greatest aggressive moat in Kenya. With out spending billions on rural towers, Airtel can now plausibly declare to succeed in the identical Kenyan terrain Safaricom does. Whether or not that promise holds up in follow stays to be seen, however the strategic intent is unambiguous.
What competitors appears to be like like now
An inexpensive query: if telcos are sharing infrastructure, are they nonetheless competing?
The reply is sure, however the competitors has moved. Pipes have gotten a shared utility. The precise battle is now about what runs over these pipes. That features model power, retail distribution, customer support high quality, app ecosystems, and most significantly fintech.
Airtel Africa added 660,000 cell cash brokers and 130,000 activating shops in FY26. The myAirtel app noticed a 74% soar in transacting customers. Airtel Cash’s annualised whole processed worth crossed $215 billion in This autumn’26. None of that is determined by whether or not the tower on the finish of the street is shared with MTN or Vodacom. All of it is determined by Airtel’s skill to amass, retain and monetise prospects by means of providers that sit on prime of the community.
In Kenya, this dynamic is already apparent. Airtel has grown its cell cash market share previous 10% whereas M-Pesa’s share has fallen beneath 90% for the primary time. The combat is now not about whose tower is taller. It’s about whose app is in your pocket and which cell cash agent is closest to your private home.
The place that is heading
Three issues to observe.
First, whether or not Airtel and MTN prolong their sharing settlement into extra markets. The businesses have already named Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda and Zambia as candidates. None of these is Kenya, however every profitable extension reduces the price of somebody proposing the identical association right here.
Second, what Vodacom does with its new Safaricom stake. As soon as the deal closes, count on strategic-review exercise inside Safaricom that will ultimately embrace conversations the corporate has traditionally refused to have, together with network-sharing economics.
Third, whether or not the regulator will get concerned. Kenya is uncommon as a result of Safaricom is so dominant that it has traditionally had little incentive to share. However because the Communications Authority continues to push for fastened broadband market reform and decrease cell cash charges, it isn’t unreasonable to count on regulatory stress to play a job in any future infrastructure dialog.
The period of each African telco constructing its personal every thing is ending. The period of shared pipes and competitors on providers has already begun. And in Kenya, with Vodacom about to take management of Safaricom, the principles of engagement are quietly being rewritten in actual time.
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