MTN revenue and subscribers surge

MTN has issued an update on its performance for the first quarter of 2022, revealing significant growth in revenue and subscribers compared to last year.
Across the entire group, service revenue grew by 15.9%, hitting R45.76 billion compared to R42.26 billion in the first three months of 2021.
That was supported by a massive data revenue uptick of 37.3% and fintech revenue growth of 21.2%.
Group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased 21.1%, with the EBITDA margin improving to 46.4% from 44.2%.
The company described its performance in South Africa as “healthy”, with service revenue increasing by 4.6% from the same period last to R9.97 billion.
“This result was supported by solid commercial and operational execution yielding service revenue growth in all the core business units,” MTN stated.
Prepaid service revenue climbed 1.5%, postpaid by 4.4%, and wholesale business by 1.9%. Enterprise service revenue saw a much more impressive surge of 23.1%.
MTN said this performance showed the resilience of the business in a challenging macroeconomic environment, with a rapidly rising unemployment rate and increased pressure on consumer disposable income.
“This environment has contributed to a notable shift in customer spending patterns and greater competition for share of the consumer’s wallet,” MTN stated.
MTN SA’s EBITDA rose by 3.7% year-on-year to R4.9 billion, which the operator said was due to increased revenue and efficient expense management.
Subscribers surge but bring in less revenue
MTN South Africa’s subscriber base climbed to 34.5 million, an increase of 7.1% from the first quarter of 2021.
“The postpaid subscriber base continued to expand, with an increase of 7.4% to 7.5 million on the back of solid growth in integrated voice and data-centric plans,” the operator stated.
“There was a 7.0% increase in prepaid subscribers to 27.0 million,” it added.
However, MTN’s average revenue per user has declined, dropping from R97.03 in Q1 2021 to R93.26 in Q1 2022.
The operator recently price increases for contracts, which came into effect at the start of May.