Versatile Amphibian

August was a relatively slow month in African telecoms investment, with $428Mn of new money committed to upgrades. 3 of the big 4 markets took new investments, with only South Africa announcement-free. Non-M&A investments for the year now stand at a touch under $8.5Bn, on track for my forecast for the year of $13.5Mn. For reference, investments announced in August 2011 totalled nearly $1.9Bn, driven by massive commitments in Nigeria and South Africa. 2010 netted a more subdued $80Mn and August 2009 yielded $300Mn. In truth, there's little of major import to report as this month's two most interesting announcements have yet to mature into concrete commitments. In Morocco, the goverment unveiled its 10 year plan to modernise the country's obselete broadband market. This exciting plan includes a national fibre backbone in combination with DSL and LTE last miles to bring developed market connectivity to 32 million people. In South Africa, MTN is looking at selling...

I've completed my analysis of the trends in African telecoms for the first half of the year and thereby amended my forecast for the remainder of 2012. Overall, investment was up 54% over the same period last year, however it remains 33% down on H1 2010. As the table shows, much of this decline is due to the destabilising effects of the Arab Spring, which has almost completely halted investment in North Africa. In 2010 and 2009 countries in this region accounted for a third of all investment in the continent. In 2011 they represented 3% of the total and are on track to be the same this year. Overall only Central African countries are likely to show an uptick in investment from 2010, driven by the nascent emergence of the continent's third most populous country - the DRC - and coincident investment by telecoms groups who are keen to find a non-Nigerian market to focus on. The market I'm most worried about is Kenya, so long a leader in digital Africa, but now, t...