09 August 2018 ( Lagos ):According to the H1’18 results ( dated June’18 ) released yesterday, MTN boasted 55.2 million subscribers on its network, which is a 2.9 million increase ( about 5.6%increase ) in subscribers, in a span of 6-months. Consequently, now its stands at 25% of the Total global subscriber base of 223 million.
Intrestingly, active data users on the company’s platform surged by 800,000 to reach 14.9 million users, and hence the data revenue spiked by 63.7 % during the period.
Whereas voice revenue only increase by 17.3%. While the data traffic on the platform surged by 52% in H1’18, Active data users on the group skyrocketed to 71 million making it 21% of the total global active users, which is only second to Iran, which amounts to about 27% of the global users.
MTN’s mobile money “ MoMo” is gaining widespread popularity and has now spread like wildfire in 14 different countries. It boasts of 24 million active users accounting to an average transaction of $6 billion/ month. What is peculiar though is that even though Lagos brags of the biggest subscriber base of the company, it accounts for only 9% of the company’s mobile market and Ghana( 33% ) and Uganda ( 22% ) are its two biggest markets.
MTN Nigeria’s H1’18 revenue increased by 17% reaching a value of N 567 billion.
The news to look forward to is that MTN Nigeria re-instated that they plan to list the company on the Nigerian Bourse. They aren't expecting any material cash inflows to the group from the IPO. While, the IPO of MTN Ghana is already completed, the IPO of MTN Nigeria is still in progress.
The group reported an H1’18 revenue of N 1.7 trillion. The service revenue of the group went up by 10.2% owing to the 17% surge in MTN Nigeria, 27.9% surge in MTN Ghana and 2.9 % marginal increase in MTN South Africa and lastly an 8.8% upsurge in MTN Uganda.
The group boasts of incredible financials, mostly boosted by the performance in Q2’18 in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
MTN Nigeria beat expectation and touched the stratosphere, and gloats of a double digit growth in the voice revenue department, and the widening of the EBIDTA margin from 38.3% to 43% fueled by increased usage and growth in data subscribers supported data revenue growth. But, its digital revenue dipped due to the optimization of its VAS business.
The MTN group vows to continue operation in Iran despite the fact that US imposed sanctions on Tehran, and will stick to their 2018 dividend target to declare a total dividend of 500 cents per share for 2018, and targets a 10-20% growth in the medium to short term.
Reporting for EasyKobo on Thursday ,09 August 2018 in Lagos, Nigeria