MTN reports strong subscriber growth in South Africa

MTN South Africa has published a quarterly update for the period ended 31 March 2025, revealing marked increases in data, wholesale service, enterprise service, and fintech revenue.

The network operator also reported a significant increase in its subscriber numbers.

“Total subscribers grew by 5.6% to 39.2 million, with postpaid customers up by 6.7% to 4.4 million, buoyed by a stronger uptake of integrated voice and data plans, as well as home propositions,” it said.

“Prepaid subscribers grew by 4.5% to 29.1 million, supported by customer value management initiatives, which continued to gain momentum.”

Enterprise service revenue saw the most significant increase at 12.3%, while data revenue and wholesale service revenue, which includes incoming voice, both increased by 3.9% during the period.

Regarding its data revenue increase, MTN South Africa said data contributed 48.3% to its total service revenue, up from a 47.7% contribution during the same period in 2024.

“This growth was driven by a 6.7% increase in active data subscribers to 21.8 million, with a 19.3% rise in data traffic,” it said.

The network operator revealed that the data usage per active prepaid subscriber grew 14.8% year-on-year to 3.8GB per month. In comparison, average active postpaid customer data usage increased 10.4% to 23.7GB monthly.

“The bulk of the growth is attributed to fixed wireless access (FWA), as more customers adopt home propositions,” it said.

MTN South Africa said improvements in both data and voice contributed to its postpaid service revenue growth of 2.9%.

“Growth in the segment was underpinned by higher subscriber numbers and continued strong data usage,” it said.

“An 8% increase in subscription pricing was implemented effective 1 February 2025, which should support revenue growth in the coming quarters.”

The network operator said its consumer prepaid business recorded a 1% service revenue decline, with a 5.3% voice revenue decrease.

MTN South Africa’s fintech revenue increased by 2.4% in the three months ended 31 March 2025.

Meanwhile, outgoing voice revenue declined by 3.2%, while digital revenue decreased by 0.3% during the period.

MTN South Africa’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) decreased by 2.6%, while the EBITDA margin increased by 0.2 percentage points to 36.7%

However, it noted that EBITDA was down 2.3% and the EBITDA margin was up 0.4 percentage points when excluding the gains or losses from the disposal of its towers.