MTN Revenue Climbs on Data, Serves 20m Nigerians Exclusively

• MTN Revenue Climbs on Data, Serves 20m Nigerians Exclusively

Data subscriptions in Nigeria lifted MTN’s revenue by 15 per cent in 2018. The firm grew its active data users from 4.5 million customers to 18.7 million within the last few years.

A document made available to The Guardian revealed that the South African firm, which raked in about N1.06trillion from Nigeria last year, recorded N150.7 billion from data services.

Also, MTN’s digital services fetched it N26.6 billion, or three per cent of its entire revenue, which was through subscription model optimised to improve customer experience. Fintech contributions to the revenue were put at N28.6 billion.

With 58.2 million subscribers, the firm’s voice revenue also climbed by 18.7 per cent, contributing 76 per cent or N783.1 billion of its revenue in Nigeria.

The firm disclosed that it invested N184.2 billion last year to increased population coverage to 70 per cent, while extended its 4G coverage to 14 cities in the country.

While the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), put access gap in the country at about 190, where about 33.7 million people are yet to be connected, MTN boasted that it is exclusively serving 20 million Nigerians in underserved areas of the country.

The network operator said each month; over 16 million people with no airtime connect with their friends and families using MTN Borrow Me Credit.

The document quoted the Group Chief Executive Officer, Rob Shuter, saying, “We recognise the obligation to do more. To whom much is given, much is required. We have so much infrastructure, assets and ability; that we take very much upon ourselves the responsibility to do what we can.”

In the areas of enabling and supporting broader economic development, MTN claimed that it enabled over one billion rapid and expedient transactions via the USSD in 2018, and enhanced the services of over 50,000 Point of Sales (PoS) terminals in Nigeria. It boasted of having over 24,000km of fibre optics backbone supporting several Internet Service Providers.

The firm said it has connected over 850 large corporate, over 100 public sector, and over 800,000 small businesses with greater reach and efficiency. MTN said over 12,000 vehicles (3,500 corporate and 8,500 SMEs) subscribed to fleet and vehicle tracking services, while 100 universities, polytechnics and colleges are accessing high capacity Internet.

Commenting, MTN Nigeria CEO, Ferdie Moolman, said: “In 2018, we rebuilt the base; adding another six million Nigerians to our network, giving a total of 58 million people access to worldwide communication services.

“This growth was built on our sustained focus on customer centric delivery, ensuring that customers get much more value for their money. This included the deployment of proactive interventions to improve customer experience, together with the enhancement of network quality and coverage, and the optimisation of our services portfolio.

“We also enabled an additional eight million people to access the possibilities that the internet provides, bringing our total data subscriber base to 44 million, of which 18.7 million use more than five megabytes per month. We are now even better positioned to ensure that everyone can access the benefits of a modern connected life.”