Telecoms foreign investment rebounds to its highest level since 2019

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Nigeria’s telecommunications sector is rebounding, driven by improved pricing reforms, naira stability, and renewed investor confidence.

In the first nine months of 2025, the telecoms sector attracted $392.91 million in foreign investments, its strongest performance since 2019, when inflows reached $922.88 million over the same period, according to new data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Since that peak, investment into the sector had been unstable, falling to an all-time low of $107.46 million in 2021, as price controls and foreign exchange volatility made long-term capital commitments increasingly unattractive.

Industry players have long blamed the decline on rigid pricing structures that ignored market realities, alongside Nigeria’s volatile foreign exchange regime. The telecom sector is heavily dependent on foreign exchange for the importation of network equipment, software, and core infrastructure, making currency instability a major investment risk.

However, a combination of policy reforms and macroeconomic stabilisation is now reversing that trend. The approval of a 50% telecom tariff hike in January 2025, coupled with improved naira stability, has helped restore investor confidence and reopened capital flows into the sector.

“The industry is now back on the path of sustainability,” said Gbenga Adebayo, chairman of the Association of Licenced Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), the industry body for telecom companies.

When telecom investments fell to $80.78 million in Q1 2025, Adebayo had projected a rebound in the second half of the year and into early 2026, barring new macroeconomic shocks.

“We trade in Naira, but a lot of our inputs are foreign exchange dependent,” he said at the time, stressing that most investors in the telecom space are deep-pocketed, patient capital providers who plan based on long-term certainty and regulatory stability.

The renewed foreign investment aligns with over $1 billion in fresh infrastructure spending unlocked in 2025, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). In August 2025, its executive Vice Chairman, Aminu Maida, said the tariff adjustment alone had changed investor sentiment.

Increasing capital inflow is already translating into concrete infrastructure expansion across major operators. MTN Nigeria more than tripled its capital expenditure to ₦757.4 billion ($527.08 million) in the first nine months of 2025, marking its biggest infrastructure investment push in years as it accelerates network expansion, capacity upgrades, and service quality improvements.

Between Q2 and Q4 2025, Airtel Nigeria invested $166 million and announced a further $120 million investment in a 38-megawatt hyperscale data centre at Lagos’ Eko Atlantic, scheduled to open in 2026.

For regulators, the rebound confirms the link between pricing reform and infrastructure investment.