By 
Despite market hiccups and brushes with regulatory authorities, MTN Nigeria has recorded a service revenue increase of 13.4%; and voice revenue increase of 12.7%. Mobile subscribers increased by 2.1 million to raise its subscribers’ base to 60.3 million.
The telecom giant recorded upward growth in other service streams. Data revenue grew by 32.4%; digital revenue was 68.0%; and Fintech recorded a 22.9% increase.
Overall, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) grew by 11.5pp to 53.3% (IAS 17: 44.2%).
. “Our first quarter performance was in line with expectations, as service revenue remained resilient with double digit growth on the back of improvements in voice and data revenues. We connected a further 2.1 million people to our network, providing them access to worldwide communication services, while additional 1.7 million people are able to access the possibilities that the internet provides,” said CEO, MTN Nigeria, Ferdi Moolman.
The MTN Group also announced that its Nigeria operation leads the group’s earning with a 10% gain despite series of challenges in Africa’s largest economy.
The MTN said it had met its medium-term revenue growth target with a 10 per cent increase led by its operations in South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana.
According to Moolman, MTN Nigeria’s growth is built on “our focus on customer centric delivery and in particular on improved customer retention, our continuous focus on value for money propositions and further network roll-out and enhancement. Q1 2019 saw a significant increase in our capital expenditure programme, with focus on LTE services, where we rolled out 1,188 sites across our key focus cities. In addition, the successful transfer of our 800MHz spectrum from Visafone to MTN Nigeria will further enable improvements to network coverage and service quality.”
MTN recently announced meeting the entry conditions to become a publicly quoted company in Nigeria.
“We have made significant progress to list on The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) following the conversion of MTN Nigeria to a public company and the successful registration of our ordinary shares with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We are now engaging with the NSE to complete the listing process,” said Moolman.
“The business is on a sustainable growth path with service revenue increasing by 13.4% YoY, in line with our medium-term guidance of double-digit growth. This was led by a 32.4% increase in data revenue and a 12.7% increase in voice revenue, a general slowdown in economic activities during the election period, impacted voice revenue growth,” he added.
