MTN Group and Telefónica announce strategic partnership

Johannesburg, South Africa & Madrid, Spain, December 14^th , 2015.- South African headquartered MTN Group and Spain’s Telefónica Group jointly announce the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement, which enables both telecommunications operators to work together to benefit from their joint scale, combined expertise and market access. The Strategic Partnership is supported by the Telefónica Partners Program, an initiative launched by Telefónica in 2011, which includes other leading telcos covering a total of 35 markets in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Middle East.

Under the terms of the Agreement, both companies have agreed to work together to capture synergies in a number of strategic areas. Many of the initial areas are aiming to improve both companies’ stand in regards to Enterprise customers, including services to multinational companies in each other’s footprint, collaboration in M2M and new digital products and services targeting the B2B segment. Additionally, the Groups will also cooperate in various strategic initiatives and exchange best practices to capture the new industry opportunities. Both companies will also enter in discussions on how to engage effectively in International Wholesale, Devices and Network/IT Procurement.

MTN Group and Telefónica teams may also engage in other business areas under the scope of the strategic Agreement, such as alignment in key technology projects in network and IT, new initiatives (such as Mobile Money or Big Data projects), and collaborate on commercial and marketing strategies. Companies will collaborate bilaterally on these and other selected areas.

The mutual collaboration is expected to provide a stronger basis to compete globally in the changing telecommunications industry.

Commenting on the partnership, Herman Singh, Group Chief Digital Officer, said that “MTN Group believes this strategic partnership with Telefónica, one of the biggest and most advanced operators in the world, will bring great benefits to MTN in enabling future growth delivery. The development scope includes our innovation process and new product offerings as we move into the New Digital World, as well as leveraging our combined scale in areas such as procurement. We are really looking forward to developing this relationship to our mutual benefit”. For Telefónica, Mario Martín, Industrial Alliances Group Director, said that “Telefónica has a strong belief in the advantages of scale and pooling of skills that industry partnerships can bring. And we are especially proud of having MTN Group, a player with outstanding track record, joining forces with Telefonica under the Partners Program. We are confident that this agreement will bring important benefits to both our Groups”.