MTN Nigeria Communication Plc said it paid the sum of $353 million in taxes and levies to the Nigerian government in 2023.
The company disclosed this in its 2023 sustainability report released over the weekend, which highlights its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices. In addition, MTN said it was able to expand its network coverage to cover 92.9% of the country’s landscape.
The technology company added that it also increased its investment in capital expenditure by 13.2% to $370.178 billion in 2023.
Per the company’s financial result, MTN Nigeria posted $1.596 trillion as revenue for the full year 2023. However, it recorded a loss after tax of $89 billion driven by net forex losses.
In a filing with the NGX, MTN’s CEO, Karl Toriola, said the company’s Sustainability Report, highlights the company’s commitment to creating shared value for all its stakeholders.
“We are proud of the progress we have made so far, expanding connectivity to 79.7 million people, achieving 92.9 percent nationwide coverage, and investing $1.7 billion in corporate social investment programs that have impacted over 58,000 lives through the MTN Foundation, contributing $356 thousand in taxes and levies to the government and investing $371 billion in capex, up 13.2% in 2023” Toriola stated.
Toriola added that MTN’s sustainability strategy revolves around four principles of eco-responsibility, sustainable societies, sound governance, and economic value-added.
According to him, MTN’s 4G coverage grew by 2.4 percentage point from 79.1% in 2022 to 81.5% in 2023, while 5G coverage grew by 8.1 percentage points from 3.2% in 2022 to 11.3% in 2023. With this, Toriola said the company has increased its percentage of the market share to 52.1% in 2023 from 50.8% in 2022.
“We are leading in the provision of connectivity and access to millions of Nigerians. Our efforts on financial inclusion in Nigeria have also been successful. Through our fintech business, we serve over 14.5 million customers in all the local governments across the country,” he said.
While MTN was able to increase its capex by 13.2% in 2023 to expand 4G and 5G networks, the company as well as other telecom operators is currently battling with a significant drop in the value of the Naira between last December and now, which may affect their further investment this year.
Based on this reality, the Chief Financial Officer of MTN, Mr. Modupe Kadri, recently told Nairametrics that the company now has less money to invest in infratructure as the ongoing forex crisis in the country has eroded the value of its capital spending which is fixed in Naira.
According to him, the devaluation of the Naira is impacting all telecom operators as most of their expenditures are in dollars while they earn in Naira.
“Now, it is a matter of cutting your coat according to your clothes. We are in an unusual time. From a governance perspective, our CAPEX is fixed in Naira, so with the devaluation of the Naira it does mean that you are going to get fewer dollars to spend.
Two major telecommunications operators in the country, MTN and Airtel recorded significant forex loss in the 2023 financial year.
