MTN subscribers soar, share unmoved
The cellular giant added 4,25 million customers in the quarter to March to reach a total of 44,3-million, up from 40-million at the end of December.
Its most active operation was in Nigeria where 1,1-million customers joined, a growth of 9% to reach 13,3-million users.
SA was far more sluggish with only 547000 new users. The company described that as “a healthy improvement” of 4% to hit 13- million customers. MTN has never managed to beat its rival, Vodacom, on their home turf. Vodacom’s latest figures are for the three months to December, when it signed up 1,58-million customers to surpass 21,7-million.
More worrying for analysts is a punishing 10% drop in the average revenue per user (arpu) in SA to R148 a month. That measurement of how much each customer spends is a more useful indication of success than subscriber numbers, as operators can have millions of customers who rarely generate profits. MTN said the decline in arpu was “in line with seasonal trends”.
Yesterday’s figures showed that its network in Iran is finally making headway after a disappointingly slow start. It signed up 926000 customers in Iran during the three months to finally crack the 1-million mark. Initially, it had hoped for that number by Christmas.
When CEO Phuthuma Nhleko unveiled MTN’s annual results in March he acknowledged that the Iranian network was losing money, but said it should win 5,5-million more users this year. It will have to step up its pace dramatically to achieve that, however, as the first quarter saw it gain less than 17% of this year’s target growth.
Nhleko has told analysts to expect a 41% boom in subscribers for the group as a whole this year. “I am pleased with subscri ber growth in the first quarter, which is in line with expectations. Assuming the continuation of market conditions, we expect to continue the healthy subscriber growth trend across all our operations and to consolidate our position as the leader in emerging markets.”
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