Bharti to invest $150 mln in Zambia - Kohli

Click to enlarge photo

By Chris Mfula

LUSAKA (Reuters) - Bharti Airtel (BHARTIARTL.BO :263.3 -0.65) will spend $150 million to improve its network in Zambia, as the mobile-phone operator challenges MTN Group for dominance in fast-growing Africa.

Bharti this month completed its $9 billion acquisition of African operations from Kuwait's Zain, making it the world's No.5 mobile-phone operator by subscribers.

"We will make an investment of $150 million to expand and improve the quality of the network in the next 2 (to) 3 years," Manoj Kohli, chief executive of Bharti Africa, told a news conference on Thursday.

Kohli said on Wednesday the company plans to spend $100 million in Malawi over the same time period.

With more than 3 million subscribers in Zambia, Bharti is the largest mobile-telephone firm in the southern African nation. Across Africa, however, Bharti still lags behind MTN.

(Reporting by Chris Mfula; Writing by Serena Chaudhry; Editing by David Dolan)