MTN hits first 1trillion naira mark in 9 months

Telco giant MTN Nigeria Communications Plc (MTNN) posted revenue of N1.2 trillion for the first 9 months of 2021 up 23.6 percent on the back of Nigerians’ fast-increasing demand for data, compared to the N975.7 billion posted in 2020.

This is the first time MTN is crossing the one trillion-naira mark in 9 months, which makes it the first-ever public company in Nigeria to record revenue that high for the period under review.

The telecom giant continues with strong earnings recorded in the 1st and 2nd quarter of this year where it posted N385.3 billion and N405.9 billion respectively.

In comparison, MTN’s revenue of N1.2 trillion (January to September) is more than Federal Government (FG) Oil’s revenue of N754.2 million for the first 8 months of 2021 when annualized. MTN now makes about N133 billion in revenues monthly while the government makes N94.2 billion in oil revenues monthly.

Q3 2021 (July- September) is recorded as the telco’s best quarter ever since the beginning of the year. Revenues were N414.9 billion, up 22.9 percent from the N337.6 billion reported in the same period last year.

Voice revenue added N234.3 billion to its revenues for the quarter compared to N221.8 billion in 2020. MTN explained the reason was due to “continued growth (9.6 percent) in minutes of use by subscribers and the success of customer value management (CVM) initiative.

In addition, following the resumption of SIM sales and activations in April 2021, MTN continued to increase the number of locations certified for customer acquisition to accelerate gross connections, further supporting growth in voice revenue.

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However, Karl Toriola, MTN CEO explained that despite the increase in voice revenue numbers, they faced challenges in some parts of the country where the government requested that they restrict service for security reasons.

“Towards the end of the quarter, our network was restricted in some locations, in line with the directives of relevant authorities and in compliance with our license conditions, to address security issues in those areas. This has slightly affected some of our business activities,” Toriola said.

One of the major growth drivers for MTN is its data revenue which grew from 57.3 percent yearly to N137.6 billion in the third quarter alone. The company explained the growth was due to its aggressive “expansion of 4G coverage and enhancing the capacity of our network to support increasing data traffic.”

Another revenue growth driver is MTN fintech business- MoMo. According to MTN, its Mobile Money network (MoMo) expanded to 234,000 registered agents in 9 months taking its total to 630,000. This increased the transaction volume to 93.3 million led by a 97.2 percent rise in subscriber growth to 6.6 million.

Digital also recorded a growth of 46.1 percent during the quarter rising to N4.18 billion compared to N2.86 billion in 2020. MTN’s digital revenue refers to any value-added service which includes application to person SMS, person-to-application SMS, unstructured supplementary service data (USSD), and interactive voice response (IVR).

These services include rich media, insurance, and e-commerce services. Its Ayoba instant messaging platform currently has 2.9 million users.

Speaking on partnerships, Toriola said “Our focus on deepening our partnerships has resulted in signing a five-year strategic partnership with the Nigerian Football Federation to become the official communications partner. We are excited about the potential to combine the power of our network and technology solutions with the passion that Nigerians have for football.”