NuRAN Wireless fills huge gaps in untapped African cellular and internet network markets
Worldwide internet penetration is now at about 60% of the global population, but what about the other 40%? Some are too young or too old, but many are living in remote rural areas and have no access, especially in Africa where as many as 300 million people have no mobile phone coverage. Today’s company is looking to fill the gap for those that currently have no wireless mobile or internet access available.
NuRAN Wireless Inc. (CSE: NUR) is a specialist telecommunications company that meets the growing demand for wireless network coverage in regions with limited or no coverage. NuRAN offers the world’s most affordable, lowest power consumption and easiest to deploy wireless solutions.
NuRAN’s mission is to “connect billions of people in rural and remote regions to a fast, reliable and scalable wireless network through innovative and affordable solutions.” NuRAN is focused on Africa, a huge untapped market with over 1.2 billion people.
NuRAN Wireless is working to develop affordable wireless network coverage in remote regions, especially in developing African countries
NuRAN’s method is to ‘build and operate rural cellular towers’, and therefore monetize the assets through revenue streams paid by the mobile network operators. The latter pays a service fee, either a revenue-share or fixed-opex model with guaranteed minimums set to cover in-country operating costs. NuRAN makes it easy by doing all the wireless network set up, including using solar power operated towers as well as the network ongoing management and maintenance.
Essentially NuRAN builds the infrastructure and then collects recurring revenue from contracts with the wireless mobile operators.
NuRAN has been achieving revenue, winning an award and has a new agreement
In January 2022, NuRAN reported: “NuRAN currently has 2,492 Network as a Service (NaaS) sites under contract with Orange Cameroon, Orange Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and MTN South Sudan. Based on a minimum guaranteed revenue stipulated within the contracts, NuRAN estimates that it would generate approximately C$3,000,000 per month once all sites are deployed. The current trend outlined above suggests revenue could reach approximately C$5,800,000 per month assuming above-mentioned run rate. NuRAN is currently targeting a minimum of 10,000 sites under contract by 2026…..”
In March 2022, it was announced that NuRAN was awarded as the winner of the 2022 Mobile World Live Pitch 2Pitch contest at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain with over 60,000 attendees.
In early April NuRAN announced they had won an over US$60 million Agreement for a minimum of 150 sites within 24 months with MTN Namibia.
As mentioned above, NuRAN plans to develop 10,000 mobile telecom sites in Africa over the next 5 years, which is expected to bring in around $220 million in annual revenues. The business is intended to be funded mostly through asset-based project financing or similar debt-oriented facilities.
Closing remarks
NuRAN is meeting a strong need for wireless cellular services, particularly in remote and underdeveloped locations in developing countries, especially in Africa. Early success with recurring ‘network as a service’ revenues is helping to further support the business growth.
NuRAN Wireless trades on a market cap of C$28 million. One to watch closely.