MTN has reported group service revenue up by 12,8% for the six months ended 30 June 2022, with group data revenue up by 33,1% and group fintech revenue up by 9,9%.
Earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) (before once-off items) grew by 13,7%, with an EBITDA margin (before once-off items) up 0,5 percentage points (pp) to 45,3%.
Basic earnings per share (EPS) were at 445 cps, up 200,7%, reported headline earnings per share (HEPS) up 46,5% to 567 cps. Non-operational impacts decreased HEPS by 94 cps. No interim dividend has been declared.
During the period, subscribers increased by 5,5% year-on-year (YoY) to 281,6-million. Active Mobile Money (MoMo) customers increased by 24% (YoY) to 60,7-million, the volume of MoMo transactions was up 31,5% YoY to 6-billion and the value of transactions increased 1% YoY to $116,3-billion.
Other highlights of the six months include holding company net debt down to R28,4-billion and leverage improved to 0.8x from 1.0x in December 2021. The return on equity (ROE) improved by 4,6pp to 24,2%, while capital expenditure (capex) was R28,3-billion including IFRS 16 leases (R17,1-billion, with capex intensity of 17,5%, under IAS 17).
Group president and CEO Ralph Mupita comments: “During the first half of 2022, we delivered a resilient performance under challenging global and regional macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions. Rising energy, food, general inflation and interest rate conditions have put pressures on disposable incomes, operating and capital expenditure.
“The conflict in Ukraine and China’s “zero-Covid” policy have impacted supply chains and to mitigate risk, we accelerated capital expenditure in some of our key markets such as Nigeria and Ghana.
“In addition to the macroeconomic challenges, in South Africa we had power supply constraints from loadshedding that affected network availability in the period.
“Notwithstanding these challenges, MTN achieved mid-teens service revenue growth, an expansion of EBITDA margins, strong underlying operating free cashflow growth and return on equity.
“We continued to invest in accelerating broadband coverage during H1 2022, with our capex deployment of R17,1-billion supporting gross capital formation of the countries that we operate in, as well as increasing digital inclusion,” Mupita adds. “We have also continued to reduce the cost to communicate, zero-rating sites and bringing down the blended cost of data across our markets by 22,5% YoY.
“The work to structurally separate the fintech business from the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) business within the operations progressed well, and the implementation of inter-company agreements and necessary regulatory approvals are tracking in line with expectations.”
Mupita concludes: “We made good progress on the faster deleveraging of our balance sheet, with the consolidated net debt-to-EBITDA ratio remaining stable at 0.4x (December 2021: 0.4x) and the Holdco leverage strengthening to 0.8x (December 2021: 1.0x).”