MTN Nigeria continues to grow despite headwinds, adding 5.7 million subscribers to its total mobile subscribers in the first nine months that ended September 30, 2022.
Mobile subscribers grew by 9.7% to 74.1 million year-on-year. Active data users also increased by 14.6% or 3.7 million to 38 million, the telecommunications giant reported in the unaudited financial statement obtained by Investors King.
Similarly, active fintech subscribers rose 68.7% to 11.2 million with MoMo wallets accounting for 1.8 million since the company started MoMo operations a few months ago.
Service revenue increased by 20.6% to N1,452.7 billion, while Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 23.0% to N780.6 billion.
Profit before tax grew by 24.7% to N400.7 billion. MTN Nigeria paid N139.5 billion as income tax for the period and posted a profit after tax (PAT) of N269.0 billion, a 22.1% year-on-year gain.
Earnings per share rose by 22.1% to N13.20 kobo
Commenting on the company’s performance, MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola, said “Our operating environment remained challenging in the first nine months of 2022. The ongoing global macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility continued to drive up energy, food and general inflation, with the annual inflation rate in Nigeria rising to a 17-year high of 20.8% in September 2022. Supply chain uncertainties were exacerbated by the availability of foreign currency needed for capital expenditure.
“These headwinds continue to put severe financial pressure on consumers and businesses.”
“Against this backdrop, we continued to support our communities and sustain investment in the coverage and capacity of our 4G network and the rollout of 5G sites, with a focus on expense efficiencies and disciplined capital allocation. This has underpinned a resilient commercial and financial performance in the period, also enabled by the unwavering support of our customers and stakeholders, as well as the hard work and commitment of our people.”
Speaking on growth, he explained that “We added 5.7 million mobile subscribers in the nine months bringing our base to 74.1 million, notwithstanding an increase in churn in Q3 2022. This was expected following the NCC’s directive to restrict outgoing calls for subscribers whose SIMs are not associated with NINs. As a result, there was a marginal quarter-on-quarter decline in mobile subscribers by approximately 57k.
“Encouragingly, the increase in churn was largely offset by the acceleration in gross connections. We anticipate a moderation in churn in Q4, which should support base growth broadly in line with our expectations for FY 2022.”