The demand for connectivity and digital financial services in Africa has continued to grow. MTN Group’s first-half 2026 unaudited results offer insight into how that demand is translating into usage and revenue across its markets.
For the six months ended June 30, 2026, the telecoms group reported 317.7 million subscribers, up 6.7% year-on-year (YoY). Active data users grew 9.1% to 179.3 million, while monthly active users on its Mobile Money platform rose 12.1% to 70.8 million.
“We are very pleased with the set of results that we recorded for the first half of 2026. We saw very strong commercial momentum across our markets,” Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita said, acknowledging that Ghana and Nigeria did some heavy lifting. He also touched on the ‘pleasing growth’ in Côte d’Ivoire, particularly on the connectivity side, as well as in Cameroon, Uganda, and Rwanda.
Mupita said that MTN employs a three-pronged strategy for connectivity: data, home, and enterprise.
“All those three areas saw really good growth which enabled us with the demand that we saw in our customer base to grow our overall subscriber base to just under 318 million subscribers across 19 markets.”
He stated that there was a slight slowdown in service revenue in the period under review due to the suspension of airtime advance in Nigeria; operations have resumed and will be reflected in H2.
Data is the new growth engine
MTN recorded service revenue of R115.3 billion, up 17.5% in constant-currency terms. Data was the biggest contributor, with data revenue rising 29.2% to R57.6 billion. Digital revenue grew 20.9%, while fintech revenue increased 13.3%. Voice grew 2.4%.
The growth reflects how quickly data consumption is changing across MTN’s markets. In Nigeria, for example, active data users increased 9.3%, while data traffic rose 25.8%. Average data usage reached 14.8GB per user, a 15.1% increase. MTN Nigeria added 7.5 million subscribers during the half, taking its subscriber base to 92.2 million.
In a report shared with Techpoint Africa, the company stated that data revenue in Nigeria has grown 65% since the tariff increase was implemented and that demand remains strong despite the higher tariff base introduced in 2025.
Ghana showed a similar pattern. Service revenue increased 32.3% in constant-currency terms, with data traffic up 61.5% and active data users growing 17%. Data’s contribution to service revenue also increased from 52.8% in H1 2025 to 58.7% in H1 2026.
In South Africa, prepaid services revenue declined by 3.3% YoY, mainly due to the airtime advance reset and ongoing voice substitution. However, postpaid (4.9%) and enterprise and wholesale (13.7%) grew. Service revenue also grew 1.5%.
The Uganda election shutdown, Ghana’s float-rate reduction, and Nigeria’s suspension of (Xtratime) airtime advance are among the factors that impacted fintech revenue growth.
MTN’s focus for H2
For the second half of 2026, MTN wants to focus on sustaining growth across its entire portfolio, improving the South African prepaid business, executing its fintech strategy, rebuilding its airtime advance business in Nigeria, and completing its proposed acquisition of IHS Towers.
The IHS transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to outstanding approvals. Mupita mentioned that IHS is now purely a pan-African business, having exited the latter markets of Brazil and Colombia. It now has a 100% footprint in common markets: Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Nigeria, Zambia, and South Africa.
“We’re now going through the regulatory processes and we anticipate subject to regulatory approvals that this is a business that will be part of the MTN Group and consolidated by the end of this year,” Mupita said.
