MTN Group executives, including the CEO Ralph Mupita and Senior Vice President for Markets, Ebenezer Twum Asante have all had their single-figure remuneration dropped significantly after the group posted an R11 billion (US$592 million) loss in 2024.
Mupita’s single-figure remuneration dropped by 19.4% from R80.4 million ($4.33 million) in 2023 to just about R65 million ($3.5 million) primarily due to his long-term incentives declining from R46.6 million in 2023 to R18.6 million in 2024. But his short-term incentives nearly doubled to R12.1 million.
But in percentage terms, Ghana’s Ebenezer Twum Asante, who is SVP for Markets, took the biggest hit of a 25% drop in his single-figure remuneration, from R50.2 million ($2.7 million) in 2023 to R37.8 million ($2 million) in 2024.
MTN Nigeria CEO, Karl Toriola was not left out – he took a 13.2% dip in his remuneration from R40.7 million ($2.2 million) in 2023 to R35.4 million ($1.9 million) in 2024, while MTN South Africa CEO, Charles Molasipi also took a relatively small drop of 2% on his pay check, from R26.9 million ($1.45 million) to R26.3 million ($1.4 million).
However, the Group Chief Financial Officer Tsholofelo Molefe was the only top executive who was rewarded with a pay increase of 14.1% during the period. From R29.5 million ($1.6 million) in 2023, she got R33.6 million ($1.8 million) in 2024. This was because her short-term incentives increased by R5 million ($269k) to R12.6 million ($678k).
The telecom giant’s top executives’ remuneration drop comes after the group was affected by the devaluation of the Naira in its largest market, Nigeria, and high inflation levels in key markets, including Ghana.
Moreover, the conflict in Sudan impacted the group’s operational and financial performance. Nevertheless, the group’s customer base reached 291 million.
The company’s report showed that group EBITDA rose by 10.2% to R70.1 billion on a currency basis, but fell by 33% on a reported basis.
The group’s service revenue declined by 5.4% on a reported basis to R177.8 billion, while data revenue dropped by 12.3% on a reported basis.
Of the group’s service revenue for the year, Ghana contributed R25.2 billion, which was 34.2% higher than it contributed the previous year (R22.5 billion), and constituted 14.2% of the total service revenue.
MTN Ghana saw service revenue growth of 39.6 per cent, underpinned by impressive performance in data and mobile money revenues for the year under revenue.
The group’s basic earnings per share declined by over 100% to a loss of 531 cents per share. Reported headline earnings also dropped by 68.9% to 98 cents per share.
That said, the group increased its dividend from 330 cents per share in the prior year to 345 cents per share, with the dividend paid out of revenue reserves.
