South Africa’s MTN Group said today that the mobile phone group is bullish on Nigeria business growth following the approval of the 50% tariff increase approved by the local telecoms regulator.
Technology Times had in January reported that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in January approved a 50% tariff increase across the telecoms industry following agitation for price increase by operators.
Speaking this afternoon at the MTN Group Limited Annual Results announcement in South Africa, Ralph Mupita, MTN Group CEO, says that its local business unit, MTN Nigeria, has started the phased implementation of the tariff increase, and the mobile phone group has readjusted its guidance for the market.
According to Mupita, “obviously, importantly, now we have the tariff adjustments approved at the beginning of this year: 50%, and we have started to implement. We haven’t completed the implementation. And that would support our view in terms of us bringing back the guidance for Nigeria. And the outcomes there very strong service revenue growth; 35.6% above the guidance. Data traffic, very strong. So you see a very healthy yield of data traffic to service revenue growth in Nigeria.”
MTN Group CEO: We haven’t completed 50% tariff increase implementation in Nigeria
MTN is looking to a month-on-month positive growth for Nigeria, following the easing of the hitherto tough macro economic dynamics in the market.
According to the MTN Group CEO, “we had to deal with quite a lot of regulatory issues in Nigeria last year. The NIN-SIM was one. There was spectrum renewal we had as well as new spectrum we acquired to give our network the capacity and headroom that we needed.
“The big activity in Nigeria was executing on the five-point plan that we communicated to shareholders at the EGM in May of last year. We had a very clear plan. If we execute on these five levers, we would end up the year in a much better place. Thanks to the execution that’s been done by Karl (MTN Nigeria CEO) and the team, we exited the year on a much stronger footing having had the renewal of the tower contracts with ATC and IHS. We reduced the LC exposure.”
According to Mupita, “obviously, importantly, now we have the tariff adjustments approved at the beginning of this year, 50%, and we have started to implement. We haven’t completed the implementation. And that would support our view in terms of us bringing back the guidance for Nigeria. And the outcomes there very strong service revenue growth; 35.6% above the guidance. Data traffic, very strong. So you see a very healthy yield of data traffic to service revenue growth in Nigeria.”
He also tells attendees at the annual results announcement today that in Nigeria, “we did maintain our network leadership. In Q3 we thought we have lost network leadership because we have been very strict around SIM-NIN registration and deleting subs where we didn’t have the NIN, and that affected our MPS in Q3, and by the end of Q4 we were back in the leadership team. Very strong set of results underlined in Nigeria, notwithstanding the macro effects which we see easing.”
He also tells attendees at the annual results announcement today that in Nigeria, “we did maintain our network leadership. In Q3 we thought we have lost network leadership because we have been very strict around SIM-NIN registration and deleting subs where we didn’t have the NIN, and that affected our MPS in Q3, and by the end of Q4 we were back in the leadership team. Very strong set of results underlined in Nigeria, notwithstanding the macro effects which we see easing.”
Ahead of the results announcement, MTN Group on Monday reported a solid underlying operational and financial performance for 2024 – and a particularly strong second half.
“This strong performance was affected by a sharp drop in the value of the currency of one of our largest markets, Nigeria; and impairments in conflict-hit Sudan,” according to the telecoms group.
MTN Group reports that its service revenue and earnings before interest, tax and amortisation (EBITDA) in constant-currency terms grew by around 14% and 10% respectively, “they were negatively affected in reported rand terms.”
In the year to December 31, 2024, service revenue of R178 billion was down by some 15% in reported terms, and reported EBITDA (before once-off items) of R60 billion was a third lower than it was in 2023. Basic earnings per share swung by 758 cents in 2024 to a loss of 531 cents.
Adjusted headline earnings per share (HEPS) decreased by 32% to 816 cents, impacted mainly by the sharp devaluation in the naira. “With a relatively more stable naira in the second half of 2024 and stronger results from MTN South Africa, second half adjusted HEPS showed strong momentum,” according to MTN.
The Board of Directors declared a dividend of 345 cents a share (up from 330 cents in 2023) as the Group reported strong commercial momentum and maintained its guidance over the medium term. “The Board,” the group says, “further, anticipates paying a minimum ordinary dividend of 370cps for the 2025 financial year.”
MTN Nigeria, owned by the South African MTN Group accounted for 87,549,410 active phone lines out of Nigeria’s total 169,318,076 active phone lines as of January 2025, according to NCC market information.
According to MTN, “we serve 291 million subscribers in 16 markets and progressed key strategic priorities and sustained a healthy financial position as well as balance sheet flexibility in 2024.”
Looking ahead, Mupita says that although there remained some macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties in the near term, he was encouraged by trends in various indicators. “These included inflation (which showed signs of abating in the second half of 2024), reduced forex volatility (particularly of the naira), as well as the tariff adjustments in Nigeria which we started to implement in February 2025. These prompted MTN Nigeria to re-instate its medium-term guidance.”
In Nigeria, he adds, “we renegotiated tower lease contracts, which allow MTN Nigeria to better manage adverse macroeconomic impacts on the business.”
Mupita adds that “alongside execution of our commercial strategies, our continued capital investment of R30 billion to strengthen the quality and capacity of our networks enabled us to capture the opportunities in data and fintech across our markets,” noting that data traffic accelerated by a third, as data subscribers grew by 8% to 158 million active users.
The volume of fintech transactions on MTN’s networks rose by 15% to more than 20 billion valued at over US$320 billion, while the number of active Mobile Money (MoMo) users rose by just less than 1% to 63 million, slowed by initiatives in key fintech markets to enhance the quality, stickiness and profitability of our overall fintech ecosystem.
Data revenue decreased by 12% on a reported basis, but increased by almost 22% in constant-currency terms. Fintech revenue increased by 11% on a reported basis, but by almost 29% in constant currency. As part of our expense efficiency programme (EEP), we realised sustainable savings of R3.8 billion in 2024.
MTN says that performance was underpinned by adhering to disciplined capital allocation as well as expense efficiencies. “We are well on track to achieve our EEP target of R7-8 billion between 2024 and 2026.”
MTN South Africa sustained a resilient overall performance, with service revenue growth of 3.1% to R43.2 billion for the year, underpinned by improved network availability and commercial initiatives. “In the latter part of the year, the business delivered some encouraging acceleration in key commercial metrics, with prepaid data revenue returning to growth from November.”
MTN Group says it advanced the execution of our key strategic initiatives in the year. These included the signing of definitive agreements with Mastercard for a minority investment into the Group Fintech structure, as well as the disposal of MTN Afghanistan, MTN Guinea-Bissau and MTN Guinea-Conakry, which further enhanced the Group’s focus and risk profile.
In Ghana and Uganda, we increased local ownership in our operations. In South Africa, we extended the MTN Zakhele Futhi broad-based black economic empowerment transaction.
“This underscores our dedication to transformation and creating shared value and remains integral to our future success,” Mupita says of the mobile phone group that celebrated 30 years of operations in 2024.
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