As an integral part of Airtel Nigeria’s commitment towards enhancing relationships with its operational stakeholders, Airtel recently hosted a Media Roundtable which was an interactive event to provide media stakeholders an opportunity to interact with key leaders at Airtel Nigeria and discuss the latest developments within the business.

The event, which was held on Thursday, 16th November 2023 at Radisson Hotel Ikeja, had more than 40 senior editors in attendance and included insightful presentations by three Airtel directors who discussed various recent developments across the business, including Airtel Nigeria enterprise offerings, collaborations with public sector Chief Information Officers (CIOs), 5G rollout, and Airtel Nigeria subsidiary, Smartcash Payment Service Bank.

The Director, Corporate Communications and CSR, Femi Adeniran, while delivering his welcome remark, expressed gratitude to the media guest and said that the roundtable is a platform for Airtel to bring the media partners up to speed on the activities of Airtel Nigeria, considering their role as vital stakeholders and consistent supporters of Airtel as a business.

“We have had several events that have brought us together in the past months, but we thought it is important to have a closer community discussion. The essence of this event is to have a good time together while we give you an understanding is currently going on in Airtel.”

Speaking at the event, Director, Airtel Business, Ogo Ofomata, revealed activities that Airtel Business has been up to in terms of providing data and cloud management solutions to both SMEs and government agencies.

 “Airtel realized that the buying behavior of the private sector is different from the public sector, so this year, we created a special public sector event to showcase how their various parastatals can be upgraded to become more reliable. It was important to showcase to the public sector how their bulky data could be well managed. We had about 46 government agencies represented, to show that we were listening to the needs of the government on the digitization agenda,” she said.

Head of B2B Sales, Smartcash PSB, Judith Osiobe, also discussed the recently launched Smartcash international remittance service, revealing that this service is to ensure financial inclusion on a global scale.

“We recently launched the Smartcash Remittance Service that offers competitive tariffs compared to traditional means. Customers can simply activate this service by opening an account with an existing mobile number by simply dialing *939# or downloading the app to activate an account.  Smartcash is here to stay, and we are changing lives and making financial services accessible for everyone. We are also proud to say that we have the best and cheapest rate in the market when it comes to sorting utility bills on our payment service app.”

In his presentation, Airtel Nigeria Director of Marketing, Ismail Adeshina, expounded on Airtel 5G rollout and the telecom giant’s commitment to innovative service delivery advancement through collaborations.

 “Airtel is investing heavily in 5G infrastructure, including towers, base stations, and spectrum licenses, to provide widespread 5G coverage across Nigeria. We are actively collaborating with technology partners, device manufacturers, and local businesses to explore and develop innovative 5G use cases, such as IoT applications and smart city solutions,” he said.

While responding to a concern of one of the Journalists who questioned if 4G will be affected following the 5G focus, he said “Every Airtel site is a 2G, 3G and 4G site. 5G deployment will not affect any of these, especially because the deployment is prioritized based on used cases and the need.”

The event lived up to its billing as a true interactive meeting, as the presentations were followed by a question-and-answer session between the directors and the media guests in attendance.

Airtel Nigeria expressed gratitude to the media for participating at the roundtable and declared that the company would look forward to collaborations that will further strengthen the bond between the company and the media.