- MTN Group has reported a significant increase in revenue and subscriber rate despite a challenging 2023.
- Per the telco, its revenue grew 13.5% to R210 billion ($11 billion), with data revenue making up R84 billion ($4.4 billion) and voice revenue contributing R83 billion ($4.3 billion), and MTN MoMo, its fintech revenue arm, totalling R21 billion ($1.11 billion)
- The telco revealed its finances endured a challenging external environment marked by high inflation (about 16.7%), forex volatility and scarcity, and ongoing political tensions in some markets, especially in Sudan.
Meanwhile, the total number of active users increased to 295 million across all markets, with active data subscribers up by more than 9% to 150 million and active mobile money users up 5% to 72.5 million.
It also experienced a growth of about one-third in the volume of its fintech transactions, reaching 17.6 billion, while the value of transactions across the fintech platform increased to $272 billion.
In October 2023, Techpoint Africa reported that MTN Nigeria's mobile money sector was steadily expanding, with a rise in active wallets to 3.5 million, accounting for the fintech user base even though, with naira devaluation, operating expenses rose by 34.7%, while profit before tax declined by 42%.
Despite facing challenges such as load shedding in South Africa, the telco revealed it spent R10 billion ($527 million) on capital projects to improve network capacity expansion and power resilience. Power and security resilience received investments totaling more than R2.6 billion ($137 million).
Furthermore, MTN South Africa reported significant growth in the consumer postpaid, enterprise, and wholesale businesses.
The company also stated that by the end of the year, network availability across its entire infrastructure had reached approximately 95%, with sites where resilience investment had been completed reporting 98% network availability.
Mastercard agreed to invest up to $200 million for a minority stake in MTN’s fintech arm, valued at $5.2 billion, as part of its progress in developing its fintech and fibre businesses.
It also separated its fibre business, Bayobab and partnered with Africa50 to develop Project East2West, a terrestrial fibre optic cable network to help bridge Africa’s connectivity gap by improving broadband access for the continent’s landlocked countries in particular.
