MTN, the largest mobile operator in Africa by subscribers, said on Thursday that new SIM registration regulations in Nigeria resulted in the loss of 2.3-million subscribers in the six months to June.
Nigeria is MTN’s largest and most lucrative market, but has been a headache for the SA telecoms company since 2015.
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In December 2020, the Nigerian Communications Commission suspended the sale and activation of new SIMs, directing operators to update registration records with national identification numbers for every SIM in Nigeria. However, a ban on new SIM activations was lifted in April and MTN expects subscriber growth to normalise over time.
MTN had a total of 277-million subscribers during the review period spread across 21 markets in Africa, which it considers a growth engine.
Group headline earnings per share (heps) dropped 10% to R3.87, affected by non-operational items that included Covid-19 donations to the AU for vaccines and the Coalition Against Covid-19 in Nigeria. Excluding these items, adjusted heps increased 31.5%.
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Group service revenue rose 19.7% to R81.9bn, led by growth of 9.3% in MTN SA, 23.8% in MTN Nigeria and 25.5% in MTN Ghana.
Voice revenue was up 8.9%, supported by growth in voice traffic of 12.3% year on year. The group said the performance was also supported by well-executed customer value management initiatives and segmented customer propositions.
Data revenue expanded by 32.2% on the back of a 56.4% increase in data usage, with sustained levels of online demand brought about by the effects of the pandemic.
Fintech revenue rose 39.7%. The number of active MoMo users increased by 2.6-million to 48.9-million compared to December 2020, generating monthly average revenue per user of $1.3.
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