MTN Nigeria Releases Latest Results, Sees Massive Fintech Boom – IT News Africa
MTN Nigeria has today announced its unaudited results for the half year ended June 30, 2022. The company, an arm of the MTN Group, considered Africa’s largest telecom in terms of subscribers and revenue, continues to report positive growth, particularly in the fintech wing .
In the half year, MTN Nigeria’s active fintech subscribers grew by 87.3% to 11.5 million, including the registration of 4.2 million MoMo wallets since the launch of the fintech PSB on May 19 this year. A massive gain for the business which was hit by a number of shady bank transfers in the country in June.
Across the board, MTN Nigeria reported positive results with a 7.6% increase in mobile subscribers to a whopping 74.1 million, adding 5.7 million in the quarter alone. Active computer users also increased by 13.2% to 36.8 million, and the company took on an additional 2.5 million active users in the quarter.
Service revenue increased by 19.9% to $2.3 billion, while earnings (EBITDA) grew by 22.1% to $1.22 billion and Capex increased by 67.1% to $750 million (up 78.6% to USD 491.7 million, excluding right-of-use assets). )
Good progress despite worldwide crises
“During the first half of 2022, we made good progress in strengthening the resilience of the business in the face of our increasingly challenging operating environment with rising energy, food and general inflation putting pressure on consumer spending,” says Karl Toriola, MTN Nigeria MANAGING DIRECTOR.
He says the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as China’s implementation of a “zero COVID” policy had put a strain on global supply chains for the company. He said MTN Nigeria was forced to accelerate capital expenditure on network expansion to mitigate these supply chain issues.
“We are pleased with the progress since launch and excited about the prospects of our fintech business and the drive for financial inclusion in the country,” he said.
“At the end of June 2022, we recorded 4.2 million registered MoMo wallets of which 2.4 million are active, generating MoMo transaction volume of approximately 7 million within six weeks of operation.”
MTN 5G is still on track for Nigeria
Toriola says the company is currently on track for the rollout of 5G technologies in Nigeria by Q3 2022, while continuing to accelerate the rollout of 4G network deployment in the country (MTN currently has 75.3% 4G coverage in Nigeria) . It recently acquired 100Mhz in the 3.5Ghz spectrum band from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
“Our financial performance in the period was underpinned by strong commercial momentum, which drove broad-based growth across our key revenue lines such as data, fintech and digital services,” says Toriola.
“We will continue to execute on our strategy to deliver service revenue growth in line with medium-term guidance. As we deal with the increased pressures in the macro economy and our business, we will continue to focus on extracting efficiencies,” he concludes.
Further details can be found in the full results here.
By Luis Monzon
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