MTN has increased its group subscribers increased quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) by 3,5-million to 243,7-million.
In its quarterly update for the period ended 30 September, the group reports that active data subscribers increased QoQ by 4,7-million to 87-million, and active MTN Mobile Money customers increased by 2,2-million to 31,7-million.
Group service revenue increased year-on-year (YoY) by 9,6%, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin of 41,1%.
MTN South Africa’s service revenue increased YoY by 0,4% with an EBITDA margin of 36,6%, while MTN Nigeria service revenue increased YoY by 12,1% with an EBITDA margin of 53,7%.
The group’s asset realisation programme is progressing, and it is in advanced discussions to sell its 49% holdings in the ATC joint ventures in Ghana and Uganda, valued at R7-billion to R8-billion.
Group president and CEO Rob Shuter comments: “MTN grew service revenue and EBITDA in the third quarter, despite challenging trading conditions. This was supported by solid commercial momentum and operational execution in most of our markets.
“The group benefited from strong performances in Nigeria and Ghana, which generated double-digit service revenue growth and improved EBITDA margins, driving growth in group service revenue of 9,6% year on year and in EBITDA of 11,8%. The group’s EBITDA margin improved by 0,6 percentage points to 35,1% on an IAS 17 basis.”
Shuter says the performance of MTN South Africa continued to be impacted by a weak economy, the implementation of lower out-of-bundle data prices, new data usage rules and unrecognised roaming revenue from Cell C.
“Across the group, we are on track with delivering our strategy,” he adds. “This is reflected in ongoing voice, data and fintech revenue growth of 4,4%, 21,5% and 30,9% respectively.
“Digital revenue declined by 46,4% as we continued to optimise our legacy value-added services (VAS) business.
“In Nigeria we have achieved a return to positive QoQ digital revenue growth following completion of the VAS optimisation in that market.”
The group added 3,5-million subscribers in the third quarter, making progress in building the digital operator with the addition of 4,7-million active data users and 2,2-million Mobile Money (MoMo) subscribers, Shuter adds.
“We have recorded 515 000 monthly active users on our Ayoba messaging platform, now launched in five markets namely South Africa, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Congo Brazzaville. We have commenced scaling our MoMo agency network in Nigeria under our super-agent licence with 66 282 agents now registered. We continue to engage the Central Bank of Nigeria on our application for a payment service bank licence.”