MTN’s long-running pursuit of Telkom has become something of a South African corporate legend – three attempts across multiple CEOs, countless political crosswinds and, ultimately each time, no deal.
Yet, in an interview with TechCentral Show to be published later this week, MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita made it clear that the logic for consolidation in South Africa’s telecommunications sector hasn’t changed.
Mupita still believes the South African market “needs consolidation”, ideally into two – or at most three – large mobile network operators. And he’s not alone: the same structural shift has played out in other markets, including the US and India. Everywhere, the economics of data-heavy mobile networks have pushed the industry towards fewer, bigger operators capable of sustaining relentless capital expenditure.
South Africa, Mupita argued, is no exception. As data consumption accelerates and 5G (and eventually 6G) densifies networks even further, only operators with massive balance sheets can keep pace.
That’s the logic behind a Telkom combination: scale, spectrum efficiency, cost synergies and a unified fibre-plus-mobile play that could match Vodacom’s new advantage through its acquisition of co-controlling stake in fibre operator Maziv. But logic is not the problem; alignment is.
Mupita said any major telecoms merger needs three forces to converge at exactly the same moment:
- Regulatory openness to the idea
- Political support for a deal
- Commercial agreement between the parties
In South Africa, those forces rarely align – and certainly didn’t during MTN’s most recent Telkom negotiations. Even if the two companies could have agreed on valuation and structure, the public-interest remedies likely required – spectrum give-backs, wholesale access obligations and ownership concessions – would have been formidable.
Stars align?
Mupita compared it to the T-Mobile/Sprint merger in the US: three failed attempts, then a narrow regulatory window opened when American policymakers convinced themselves that failing to consolidate would cost the US the 5G race to China.
In South Africa, no such galvanising national-interest narrative has yet emerged – though one could imagine spectrum efficiency, rural coverage or 5G industrialisation forming the core of such an argument.
So, does MTN still want to buy Telkom?
Read: MTN quits talks to buy Telkom
Yes, if the three forces line up, Mupita suggested he’d take a proposal to his board. Not now – nothing is being actively pursued – but conceptually the door is still open. Despite the three failed attempts, MTN hasn’t completely abandoned the idea. And if Telkom isn’t the answer today, it may well be again tomorrow — provided the stars finally align. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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