Bad turn for MTN South Africa
MTN has released its annual financial results for the year ending 31 December 2025, which revealed that its South African business reported its first decline in revenue in more than ten years.
Asked whether he was concerned about the turn in South Africa’s performance, MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita said that the correct way to characterise it was that it was at the low end of their guidance.
Mupita noted that MTN South Africa’s service revenue increased by 2%, which is at the lower end of their guidance, while its EBITDA margin was 34.6% — slightly lower than MTN’s 35% guidance.
“MTN SA is a tale of two stories. The one is that there are quite intense competitive pressures in the prepaid market, even when you look at Vodacom’s results,” Mupita said.
“The prepaid market is about 52% of our total service revenue. MTN SA is doing very well on postpaid, very well on enterprise, and doing OK on wholesale. The issue is the prepaid market.”
Mupita said there are some initiatives they announced in the third quarter of last year, which will take a few quarters to bear fruit.
“Q1 and Q2 this year also remain challenging whilst these initiatives take effect. In the meantime, they are streaming decent cash up to the group,” Mupita said.
Another concerning turn was that MTN South Africa’s capital expenditure was 48.5% lower than last year, decreasing from R16.3 billion in 2024 to R8.4 billion in 2025.
Fortunately for MTN, it appears that Vodacom has also cut its capital expenditure in South Africa, with its third-quarter year-to-date capex at nearly R7.7 billion on 31 December 2025.
While MTN South Africa’s overall subscriber numbers rose by 1.9% from 39.8 million to 40.6 million, Mupita noted that intense competition was helping to keep prepaid prices low.
“Prepaid subscribers were marginally lower by 0.7% YoY to 29.7 million, reflecting higher
promotional activity and churn, as competitive pressures intensified,” MTN stated in its report.
“Consequently, the consumer prepaid segment reported a 2.3% YoY decline in service revenue, with a contraction of 3.9% YoY in Q4 2025 reflecting the increased competitiveness into the close of the year.”
Data growth, fintech and digital services decline
Data revenue sustained growth of 4.5%, even as Q4 2025 momentum eased to 3.2% year-on-year amid heightened pricing pressure in the market.
“The overall data ecosystem continued to expand, with the active subscriber base edging up 0.8% to 22.0 million and data traffic accelerating by 27.3% year-on-year,” it said.
MTN SA’s data growth was driven by higher consumption, with an 18% year-on-year increase in average usage per active postpaid data subscriber to 26.5GB.
This was supported by the broader adoption of fixed wireless access (FWA) services. For prepaid customers, average monthly usage accelerated by 28.4% to 4.2GB, indicating rising demand.
Its Home subscriber base (FWA and fibre) continued to expand, underpinned by differentiated and compelling product propositions, including the successful Shesh@5G offering.
“Voice revenue growth remained subdued, declining 4.2% year-over-year and 8.0% in Q4 2025, reflecting the broader pressures in the consumer prepaid segment,” said MTN.
“This was partially offset by the resilience of the consumer postpaid base, which delivered positive voice revenue growth of 2.9%, in the context of the continued shift toward VoIP Services.”
MTN South Africa also saw digital services revenue decline by 3.2%, primarily impacted by lower prepaid recharge activity.
“The performance was also impacted by softer content VAS and rich media services revenue, though this was partially offset by the continued double-digit expansion in mobile advertising.”
MTN SA’s fintech revenue declined by 8.4%, largely reflecting a slowdown in XtraTime activity. XtraTime is MTN’s airtime advance product.
“Recharge volumes moderated on the back of initiatives to rebalance the mix with cash recharges,” MTN stated.
“This was partially offset by growth within the MoMo portfolio, where performance was supported by continued momentum in InsurTech-related services.”
MTN said that its South African division was progressing interventions to improve prepaid performance, including refined regional offers, richer personalisation on bundle pricing and channel optimisation.
“In postpaid, MTN SA effected contract price adjustments in February 2026, which are expected to complement overall rising data,” it stated.
“The growth in home connectivity is anticipated to remain strong, with a clear focus on expanding FWA and FTTH uptake, as well as enhancing commercial monetisation.”
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