MTN takes pain in South Africa
MTN has released a trading update for the quarter ended 30 September 2025, revealing a marked decline in revenue for its South African business, both year-on-year and for the year-to-date.
MTN South Africa’s Q3 2025 revenue amounted to R12.75 billion, down 2.6% year-on-year from R13.09 billion in Q3 2024.
Its revenue for the year-to-date amounts to R37.99 billion, down 3.3% from R39.28 billion at the same time in 2024.
“MTN SA delivered a resilient performance in the first nine months, amid ongoing intense competitive pressures in the market,” MTN said.
However, voice revenue declined by 2.8%, digital revenue declined by 2.7%, and fintech revenue declined by 5.1%.
This is in contrast to the rest of the MTN Group, where fintech revenue increased by 35.7%, or 23.1% in constant-currency terms.
MTN South Africa’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) declined by 4.8%. The decline was 4.6% when excluding losses from the disposal of its towers.
However, MTN’s South African business saw service revenue increase by 2.0% and data revenue increase by 5.0% during the reporting period.
“Although navigating the short-term impacts in Q3 from lower performance in digital and Xtratime, the result was supported by encouraging performances in the consumer postpaid and enterprise segments,” it said.
Over the same period, MTN South Africa recorded 1.3% growth in wholesale revenue and 12.3% growth in enterprise revenue.
The company’s subscriber base in South Africa increased by 2.1% to 40.1 million, which it attributed to enhanced product offerings and a customer experience-focused drive.
“Postpaid customers increased by 7.3% to 4.6 million, supported by a stronger YoY uptake of integrated voice and data plans, device-based offers, and continued growth of the FWA Home customer base,” it said.
“Prepaid customers decreased slightly by 0.4% to 29.4 million from 29.5 million on the back of higher churn, as competition in the segment continued to intensify.”
MTN said its data revenue growth was supported by a 1.7% increase in active data subscribers and driven by stronger data traffic, which grew by 24.7%.
“Data revenue contributed 48.8% to total service revenue, up from 47.4% in the prior year,” it said.
“Data consumption continued to rise, with average usage per active postpaid data subscriber rising 13.4% YoY to 24.9GB.”
It added that the monthly average usage per active prepaid subscriber grew 27% to 4.1GB, which MTN said reflects expanding demand and deeper engagement.
The table below summarises key figures in MTN South Africa’s trading update for the quarter ended 30 September 2025.
| MTN SA results | Q3 2025 | Q3 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | R12.75 billion | R13.09 billion | -2.6% |
| Revenue year-to-date | R37.99 billion | R39.28 billion | -3.3% |
| Service revenue | R11.06 billion | R10.91 billion | 1.4% |
| Digital revenue | Unstated | Unstated | -2.7% |
| Fintech revenue | Unstated | Unstated | -5.1% |
| Subscribers | 40.06 million | 39.23 million | 2.1% |
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