{"id":76516,"date":"2013-04-25T08:57:57","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T06:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=76516"},"modified":"2013-04-25T09:08:40","modified_gmt":"2013-04-25T07:08:40","slug":"mtn-loses-subscribers-in-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/76516-mtn-loses-subscribers-in-sa.html","title":{"rendered":"MTN loses subscribers in SA"},"content":{"rendered":"

MTN<\/a> says it is connecting approximately 195 million people in 22 countries in a quarterly update for the period ended March 2013; however, its operation in South Africa experienced a 1.9% decline to\u00a024.950 million subscribers from 25.421 million in Q4 2012.<\/p>\n

MTN Group President and CEO, Sifiso Dabengwa<\/a> said: “The group started the year strongly, increasing subscriber numbers by 3.2% quarter on quarter to 195.4 million. This supported growth in traffic volumes and local currency revenue.”<\/p>\n

“In South Africa, despite a slow start to the year, MTN maintained its market share and reviewed its market offerings to be more competitive.”<\/p>\n

MTN South Africa<\/h3>\n

MTN said that, after a strong 2012, the past quarter was characterised by a weaker consumer environment as well as increased pricing competition in SA.<\/p>\n

The business recorded 470,000 net disconnections – a quarter on quarter (QoQ) decrease of 1.9% in the traditionally weak period – to\u00a024.950 million which was further exacerbated by the strong subscriber growth recorded in the last quarter of 2012.<\/p>\n

In the period under review, the average price per minute (PPM) declined 5.5% compared to the same period a year earlier, placing some pressure on revenue growth.<\/p>\n

Blended ARPU declined 8.1% to R110.62 as a result of promotional activities and a decline in effective tariffs.<\/p>\n

However, MTN said that, towards the end of the quarter, there had been some sign of an improvement in both subscriber and revenue trends.<\/p>\n

“Data revenue remains a key focus for the business. In the past quarter, active data subscribers were 13.3 million, data revenue, including MTN Business and mobile data, increased approximately 15.7% YoY,” the group said.<\/p>\n

MTN Nigeria<\/h3>\n

Following a challenging 2012, there was a continued improvement in the key operating metrics for the Nigerian business in the past quarter, MTN said.<\/p>\n

“We recorded net additions of 3.9 million, an increase of 8.1% QoQ, as the market rebounded following the significant price reductions during August and September 2012.”<\/p>\n

“Encouragingly, revenue growth continued to track higher since bottoming out in September last year and local currency ARPU remained stable. We regained market share by 2 percentage points to 49.7%,” MTN said.<\/p>\n

It said that in the past quarter, data subscribers reached 22.8 million, and data revenue increased approximately 63.5% in local currency YoY.<\/p>\n

“We made good progress on our network rollout, adding 450 new 2G sites during the quarter compared to 211 in the same period last year. We also added 259 co-located 3G sites, bringing the total number of 3G sites to 3,508,” MTN said.<\/p>\n

Other Operations<\/h3>\n

MTN Ghana increased subscribers by 2.5% QoQ, adding 290,000 subscribers. MTN said the business performed well with stable YoY local currency ARPU. A strong performance in the data market supported ARPU, with data subscribers reaching 4.1 million and data revenue increasing 67.3% in local currency YoY.<\/p>\n

MTN Irancell<\/a> increased subscribers 2.6% QoQ. Data subscribers remained stable at 10.1 million at the end of the quarter and data revenue increased 58.6% in local currency YoY.<\/p>\n

MTN Cameroon increased subscribers by 2.6% QoQ, adding 192,000 subscribers in the period. Data subscribers reached 600,000 at the end of the quarter and data revenue increased 42.9% in local currency YoY.<\/p>\n

MTN Ivory Coast increased subscribers by 5.8% QoQ, adding 354,000 subscribers, while data subscribers reached 900,000 at the end of the quarter and data revenue increased 41.1% in local currency YoY.<\/p>\n

MTN Uganda added 248,000 subscribers, growing 3,2% QoQ, while data subscribers reached 1.2 million at the end of the quarter and data revenue increased 53.6% in local currency YoY.<\/p>\n

“MTN Syria continued to operate in a highly challenging environment with no improvement in the security situation. The business recorded net disconnections of 364,000, a 6% decrease QoQ, with both revenue and margins coming under pressure. This is expected to continue,” MTN said.<\/p>\n

More on MTN<\/h3>\n

MTN customer loses R97,000<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN stole my IP: MobiRes MD<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN WiFi offloading deal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

You will pay more for MTN LTE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While MTN is edging towards 200 million subscribers across the group, its South African operations are feeling a slight pinch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340875,"featured_media":76518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[35,42,19188,19186,875],"class_list":["post-76516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-mtn-south-africa","tag-safiso-dabengwa","tag-subscriber-numbers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76520,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76516\/revisions\/76520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}