Africa needs its own technology champions to enable the continent to be more deliberate about the kind of evolution and digital ecosystem that it needs.

The continent’s needs differ from other continents, and the digital economy is going to be the biggest catalyst to deliver the vision of the African Union's Africa 2063, MTN president and CEO Ralph Mupita told participants at an editor’s roundtable on Tuesday.

Building the continent’s own tech champions would be a result of investment, and competition policies would be critical to unlocking this, he said.

Consolidation will be key, and while there is a need to bring factors such as choice, public interest and investment into the decision-making process for potential mergers, many competition authorities pivot or lean closer more to one than the other.

In Europe, as in much of the African markets that follow the European model, choice in technology matters slightly more than investment in decision-making, while in markets in the US and China, for example, investment matters slightly more than choice.

However, Europe does not have many tech champions, while the US and China have several, he pointed out, noting, however, that there had been a shift in Europe recently to enable more consolidation, with the consolidated entity held to very stringent quality of service and roll-out obligations, besides others, under the context of public interest.

India, Japan and South Korea, besides others, have also all built significant tech champions.

Turning to the impact of South Africa’s Competition Tribunal’s prohibition of the Maziv deal, questions arose about the position of the government towards competition and investment during Mupita’s engagements with shareholders following the publication of the company’s year-end results in March.

“[Doubt at] whether the Maziv deal Competition Tribunal ruling would have permanent harms is a view we share, even though we are a competitor,” Mupita commented.

In November 2021, telecommunications group Vodacom proposed acquiring the fibre assets of Community Investment Ventures Holdings’ (CIVH’s) fibre units, Vumatel and DFA, and bundling them with Vodacom’s South African fibre assets into a joint venture open-access fibre infrastructure holding company Maziv, in which Vodacom would initially hold a 30% stake. Vodacom had an option to increase its stake to 40%.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa approved the transaction in October 2022; however, in August 2023, the Competition Commission recommended the prohibition of the proposed tie-up on anticompetitive grounds, and in October 2024, the Competition Tribunal prohibited the merger, with the reasons document only published on March 28, 2025.

In the past three years, the proposed Vodacom/Maziv merger was the only merger and acquisition deal to be prohibited.

In a general update to the Portfolio Committee for Communications and Digital Technologies on February 11, 2025, the Competition Commission said that it heard a total of 13 merger and acquisition cases for the 2023/24 financial year in the entire information and communications sector, down from 15 in the 2022/23 financial year. In the current 2024/25 financial year to date, ten have been heard.

The commission unconditionally approved 13 deals in 2022/23 and four deals in 2023/24. In the current financial year to date, it had approved six unconditionally.

There were two conditional approvals in the 2022/23 financial year, eight in the 2023/24 financial year, and four in the current financial year.

Technology is a scale game and tech champions can be for the good of society.

“These big techs have an abundance of capital to really put into research and development and to come up with new, innovative solutions that kind of scale on beyond their shores,” he said, citing successes such as Google and Microsoft.

“I look at Vodacom South Africa, MTN South Africa, Telkom South Africa and Cell C. Those four do not meet the cost of capital. Their returns do not meet the cost of capital. None of them, including MTN. So it is telling you something about the market structure.”

He cited the example of India, which used to be a 14-player market, with none making money, just under a decade ago.

“Today, it is a two-and-a-half player market. There is more investment in India. The whole country, with one-and-a-half billion people, are covered by consistent high quality [connectivity]. It almost seems counterintuitive that fewer players can provide more capacity, more network and more social growth, however, they are able to invest for the long term.”

India has built two champions, one of which has grown so much that it has become a major shareholder of a company that used to own a portion of it.

“I always look at India and say, look at the wonderful digital transformation we have seen in India since 2014, this can happen in our continent, and actually quite quickly.”

“In our conversations with [Trade, Industry and Competition] Minister Parks Tau, when we talk about what are the conditions that could attract more capital in the industry, we speak on the point that we believe that there is consolidation needed in the sector, this particular sector, outside of Vodacom,” Mupita continued.

“Discussions have been very constructive. He understands the lens we look at. So I think the bellwether thing to watch is what happens with Maziv. I think it will say a lot about competition policy as we look forward, and what it means for investment going forward.”