MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita warned on Tuesday that the affect of US President Donald Trump’s tariff and commerce warfare is prone to constrain capital spending by telecommunications operators because of will increase in radio gear prices.
Talking at a media occasion at MTN’s Fairland, Johannesburg headquarters on Tuesday, Mupita mentioned is just too early to know simply how impactful the tariff warfare might be on the worldwide economic system, with the world “a month or two away” from seeing the results “wash via the system”.
“Our anticipation is that world development will gradual and the tariffs, particularly if they’re sustained over a protracted interval, will hold inflation extra elevated than it will in any other case have been,” he mentioned.
Inflation
“What we imagine firms of our nature have to look at is provide chains and the place the inputs from these provide chains come from,” mentioned Mupita.
He added that inflationary results are possible ripple throughout the worldwide economic system and will result in will increase in the price of radio gear, forcing operators to evaluate their pricing as they try to soak up the shock.
MTN has a put aside about US$2-billion for capital spending on community infrastructure within the 2025 monetary yr, which runs to 31 December.
Mupita mentioned the character of capital expenditure means it requires planning, which incorporates understanding what gear suppliers have and the way a lot inventory is offered. This implies MTN might be “largely shielded” from shocks to its provide chain this yr as these offers are nearly concluded.
Learn: MTN to launch new pan-African streaming service
One thing else that will assist defend MTN from the affect of the US tariffs is that the group acquires most of its radio gear from Chinese language distributors like Huawei Applied sciences due primarily to price concerns.
Mupita defined that at $5/buyer, MTN’s projected common income per person throughout Africa is way decrease than the $60-plus that European operators can anticipate from their prospects. Consequently, MTN sources extra of its equipment from the extra reasonably priced Chinese language distributors as an alternative of others like Europe’s Ericsson. — (c) 2025 NewsCentral Media
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