MTN Nigeria today announced its unaudited results for the half-year ended 30 June 2022, showing substantive growth, particularly in its fintech wing, on the back of mobile money.
The half year saw MTN Nigeria’s active fintech subscribers grow by 87.3% to 11.5 million, including the registration of 4.2 million mobile money wallets since the launch of the fintech PSB on 19 May of this year.
But its mobile money an banking business took a hard hit in June when a series of shady bank transfers to the tune US$53.7 million.
Across the board, MTN Nigeria reported positive results with a 7.6% increase in mobile subscribers to an enormous 74.1-million, adding 5.7 million in the quarter alone. Active data users also increased by 13.2% to 36.8 million, with the company taking on an additional 2.5 million active users in the quarter.
Service revenue increased by 19.9% to $2.3 billion, while EBITDA grew by 22.1% to $1.22 billion and Capex rose by 67.1% to $750 million (up 78.6% to $491.7 million, excluding the right of use assets.)
Good Progress Despite Worldwide Crises
“During the first half of 2022, we made good progress in strengthening the resilience of the business in the face of our increasingly challenging operating environment with rising energy, food, and general inflation putting pressure on consumer spending,” says Karl Toriola, MTN Nigeria CEO.
He says that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as China’s implementation of a “zero-COVID” policy had put a strain on global supply chains for the company. He said that MTN Nigeria was forced to accelerate capital expenditure for network expansion in order to mitigate these supply chain issues.
“We are pleased with the progress since the launch and excited about the prospects of our fintech business and driving financial inclusion in the country,” he said.
“As at the end of June 2022, we recorded 4.2 million registered MoMo wallets of which 2.4 million are active, generating MoMo transaction volume of approximately 7 million within six weeks of operations.”
MTN 5G Still on Track for Nigeria
Toriola says the company is currently on track for the deployment of 5G technologies in Nigeria by Q3 2022, while it continues to accelerate the rollout of 4G network deployment in the country (MTN currently has a 75.3% 4G coverage in Nigeria). It recently acquired 100Mhz in the 3.5Ghz spectrum band from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
“Our financial performance during the period was underpinned by strong commercial momentum, driving broad-based growth across our key revenue lines such as data, fintech, and digital services,” Toriola says.
“We will continue executing our strategy to deliver service revenue growth in line with medium-term guidance. As we manage the increased pressures in the macro-economy and our business, we will continue to focus on extracting efficiencies,” he concludes.
Additional details can be found in the full results here.
