MTN chases cell contracts
MTN will double up on its expansion plans this year in an effort to boost its post-paid market.
The company revealed strong growth across all its operations (except Sudan, which was down 7.2 percent) with an increase of 35 percent in revenue for the six months to June this year — but it was a significant slowdown from last year.
Phuthuma Nhleko, MTN’s chief executive, said: “Sudan was disappointing for us as the regulator required us to disconnect 1.1million subscribers who did not register [their personal information]. We lost market share in Sudan and I’m not sure if our competitors did the same [disconnect subscribers]. It’s a high priority for us to resolve.”
The company’s growth slowed from a revenue increase of 69 percent in the previous corresponding period . MTN suffered a 175 naira (R11.50) per subscriber penalty in Nigeria, where it has 18.5million subscribers, for allowing its network to become congested. It has set capital expenditure for the year at R25-billion .
Nhleko said that while recent talks with Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications were not fruitful, the company would continue to look for opportunities in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
MTN SA is slowly taking market share from Vodacom. While Vodacom, the local market leader, had a 55 percent share last year, this year it had 54 percent . This translated into a one percentage point rise from 35 percent last year for MTN.
“While there was some subscriber growth in the post-paid market, we could have been more competitive,” Nhleko said.
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