MTN Uganda reported on Monday a 6.6% jump in pre-tax profit for 2021, compared with the previous period, helped by higher data sales and faster uptake of its fintech services.
The company said it earned 490.9 billion Ugandan shillings ($136.93 million) in 2021.
MTN Uganda attributed the profit growth to a jump in data sales of 21.9% that was underpinned by improvements in broadband coverage and growth in active data users.
“We undertook an aggressive deployment of 3G and 4G sites,” the company said in its results statement.
There was strong growth in the firm’s financial technology services too, especially in mobile money services. The company added 1.5 million subscribers in 2021.
Mobile money is a cell phone-powered service that enables subscribers to transfer money and purchase goods and services on the platform. The service was pioneered by the mobile operator Safaricom (SCOM.NR) in neighbouring Kenya.
A unit of South African telecom giant MTN Group (MTNJ.J), MTN Uganda is the east African country’s biggest telecommunications firm with a subscriber base of about 15 million.
It chiefly competes with a unit of India’s Bharti Airtel (BRTI.NS)
The firm listed its shares on the local bourse Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) in December after a deeply undersubscribed initial public offering (IPO) in which the firm sought to sell 20% of the company’s equity.
MTN Uganda also said it would pay a dividend of 15 Ugandan shillings for 2021.
MTN Uganda began operations in Uganda in 1998 and secured a 12-year renewal of its license in June 2020 on condition it lists a portion of its equity on the local bourse.
Keith Kalyegira, head of the state-run regulator Capital Markets Authority, attributed the low investor response to “The economic situation, the Covid environment, (and) people watching their savings.”
