Summary
Middle East and Africa telecom operators closed the second quarter of 2025 with steady but uneven momentum, as core connectivity, enterprise services, and digital platform expansion combine to shape performance across the region. Revenue growth, EBITDA margins, capital expenditure intensity, and ARPU trends across operators including Mobily, Orange MEA, Turk Telekom, STC, Zain Kuwait, Ooredoo Qatar, Etisalat UAE, and Turkcell anchor the picture.
Core connectivity is gradually commoditising, prompting a pivot toward fintech, cloud, and hyperscale partnerships as sources of higher-value revenue and repositioning telcos as ecosystem architects rather than pure pipe providers. Enterprise services stand out as a structural growth engine, with private 5G deployments, wholesale ICT expansion, and government digital agenda partnerships examined as durable revenue pools in a market where consumer momentum is slowing.
Profitability is decoupling from topline growth, with some operators expanding margins through efficiency programmes and digital adjacencies while others face pressure from competitive volatility and macroeconomic conditions. Frontier initiatives spanning cloud-AI platforms, 6G research collaboration, and 5G innovation labs round out where the region's telecom ambition is heading.
- Capex reallocation from coverage expansion toward AI and advanced 5G
- ARPU divergence between postpaid-migration markets and politically constrained ones
As connectivity commoditises, which MEA operators are building the platforms of tomorrow while still delivering today?
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