NSE lists shares of MTech by introduction
By Moses Ebosele

BARELY one year after a “successful private placement”, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), yesterday, listed 4,966,666,668 shares of Mtech Communications Plc at N2.50k.

The shares, which were listed by introduction, are expected to lift the fortunes of the company in the Value Added Segment (VAS) of the telecommunications industry in Nigeria.

Welcoming the management of Mtech Communication to the floor of the NSE, the General Manager in charge of market operations and information, Binus Yaro said shareholders would benefit from the resolve of the company to have its shares quoted in the market.

According to the company, its services are focused on developing products and services that mobile networks offer to their customers, to get more value from their mobile phones.

Some of the services, which Mtech powers for the mobile operators, include MTN Funtones, MTN Caller Tunes, Zain Central Station and GLO Magic Plus.

The company said it has experienced steady growth since its inception in 2001 when it launched MTN’s mobile Internet service.

“Since then, Mtech has developed platforms to deliver mobile content for the four leading digital mobile operators in Nigeria and through partnerships with mobile operators, Mtech provides services to over 70 million subscribers across Africa,” said the Managing Director, Chika Nwobi.

Earlier, the Chairman of the company, Mrs Sheri Williams, said the company intends to grow its profit by collaborating with all its partners in the telecommunication industry.

As at December 2008, Mtech said it had commenced operations in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Cote D’Ivoire.

Information made available said its key operator partners outside Nigeria include MTN Ghana, MTN Cote D’Ivoire, Zain Ghana, MTN Uganda, Safaricom Kenya and Celtel Kenya.

According to Nwobi, the company plans to continue growing the business over the next five years by expanding to more markets in Africa and the Middle East, as well as by developing new services to roll out into the fast growing telecoms market in Africa.

” MTech is the leading provider of mobile Value-added services in Nigeria and works with mobile network operators, media organisations and large corporate organisations to develop, launch and run value added services for mobile users.

“MTech principle operations are in Nigeria with operating companies in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana.

“MTech plans to grow its business through geographic expansion into new markets in Africa and entry into new complementary business lines in media and information technology,” said Nwobi

Mrs. Williams said: “Our focus over the last three years is on breaking into new African markets” adding that having successfully entered the West and East African sub region, we are poised to turn the lessons learned into a competitive advantage and roll-out our services into more countries in order to increase our market share in Africa while maintaining Nigeria as our idea and innovation hub.”