quarterly results show that its South African operation has taken market share from rivals, it said on Friday, pointing to customer numbers that rose 8.1% year on year.Service revenue growth, at 3.5%, was less robust, however, with the weak economy and load shedding, as well as “revenue concessions” to support the recapitalisation of roaming partner Cell C, having an impact. Prepaid service revenue rose by only 0.4%.
“Amid unprecedented load shedding, which negatively affected network availability, MTN South Africa expanded market share, delivered encouraging underlying service revenue growth, strong expense controls, and investment in network resilience and expanding the 5G coverage,” said MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita in a statement.
Mupita warned, however, that persistent load shedding in the last quarter of the year “could impact revenue growth, particularly in the consumer prepaid market”. Total MTN Group subscribers increased by 6.8% year on year to 285 million, while its fintech business’s customer base rose by 23.3% to 63 million and fintech transaction volumes increased by a third to 9.5 billion.
The group reported a 14.3% increase in service revenue to R144-bilion; the Ebitda profit margin, a measure of operational profitability, rose to 45.3%. —Get the latest and best