Saudi Arabia round table reveals imminent transition to towerco business model

All the leading stakeholders in the emerging Saudi Arabian tower sharing market participated in the inaugural TowerXchange Meetup MENA in January 2019. Several of the county’s leading MNOs, towercos, investors and suppliers contributed to discussions at a revealing Saudi round table, which covered ground leases, lease-up plans, new build, decommissioning, regulation, fibre and urban infrastructure deployment. Here’s what we learned.

All three Saudi MNOs are exploring significant changes in their tower strategy:

- Zain has announced the sale and leaseback of 8,100 towers with African market leading towerco IHS Towers, agreeing a US$647.7mn