MTN South Africa has announced that its 5G network has reached population coverage of 40%, following a sustained base station deployment programme that accelerated significantly in the second half of 2025. The coverage milestone positions MTN as the country’s most widely distributed 5G operator, ahead of both Vodacom and Telkom, though the figure still represents a fraction of the eventual coverage targets the company has set for the next three years.
The rollout has concentrated initially on South Africa’s major metropolitan areas — Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and East London — where subscriber density justifies the capital outlay and where corporate and enterprise customers are prepared to pay premium rates for the higher speeds and lower latency that 5G delivers. Commercial 5G services are now live across most of Gauteng, the Cape Town central business district and Atlantic Seaboard, and the Durban beachfront and northern suburbs corridor.
MTN Group Chief Executive Ralph Mupita told shareholders at the company’s annual results presentation that South Africa remains the group’s most important market and that the 5G investment is a strategic commitment to maintaining the country’s status as a technology hub for the African continent. The company has pledged to spend R8.3 billion on South African network infrastructure over the next two years.
The expansion of 5G into secondary and tertiary cities — including Polokwane, Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Nelspruit and George — is planned to begin before the end of 2026. MTN has also indicated that it is exploring fixed wireless access 5G services as an alternative to fibre broadband in areas where cable infrastructure deployment is not economically viable.
Industry analysts at Ovum have noted that South Africa’s 5G competitive dynamics are intensifying, with Rain’s low-cost data-only 5G proposition disrupting the incumbent operators’ premium pricing strategies.
