MTN has reported 1,8% subscriber growth to 227,5-million for the quarter ended 31 March 2015.
While the company added 4,1-million subscribers across its operations, this wasn’t reflected in the South African market, where muted growth is blamed on delays in engaging a replacement distributor and reduced handset sales.
Nigeria, on the other hand, saw a 2,1% increase in users despite a weakening macro-economic environment.
Massive growth was seen in the Mobile Money offering, with 27,4-million subscribers – 23,2% more than the last quarter – now using the service across 14 operations.
MTN reports that its data revenue increased by 16,7% year-on-year (year-over-year), and now contributes 20,8% to total revenue, with organic data revenues increasing 24% year-over-year.
MTN Group president and CEO, Sifiso Dabengwa comments: “MTN’s results for the quarter were impacted by a weaker macro-economic environment following the reduction in the price of oil in 2014 and continued price competition.
MTN Nigeria is improved subscriber growth trends although revenue and minutes growth remains a challenge. While South African operation’s subscriber growth was impacted by seasonality and some operational challenges, revenue growth was encouraging.
“We continue to focus on our non-voice services which remain the key driver of the group’s revenue growth. In the quarter, we bolstered our management team to facilitate growth in these areas. We appointed a group chief consumer officer and have made provision for the appointment of an executive for our digital business. Data revenue increased by 16,7% as we expanded our 3G and LTE networks and stimulated the adoption of data-enabled devices and smartphones.”
MTN South Africa recorded muted subscriber growth, ending the quarter with 28-million subscribers. The post-paid and pre-paid subscriber base declined marginally recording 5,4-million and 22,6-million subscribers respectively. This was impacted by seasonality, some short-term challenges in the distribution channel and lower handset sales. Despite this, the operation remained competitive increasing total minutes by more than 100% year-over-year. Total minutes declined 6.1% quarter-on-quarter, impacted by seasonality.
Data revenue in South Africa showed strong growth of 21,8% year-over-year and now contributes 27,7% to total revenue. This was supported by attractive data promotions including data bundles and segmented e-journey communications. Data usage increased 62,6% year-over-year while data users increased 18,1% year-over-year to 17,2-million. MTN South Africa continues to focus on cost containment initiatives and optimising its operating model. Blended ARPU decreased by 4,8% to R87.