MTN registers 1.2m active MoMo wallets in three months

The payment unit of MTN Nigeria Communications Plc – MoMo Payment Service Bank (MoMo PSB) has registered 1.2 million active MoMo wallets from January 1- March 31.

Karl Toriola, the chief executive officer at MTN Nigeria disclosed this in its financial result for the first quarter of 2023.

According to Toriola, the company expanded its agent network by adding over 40,000 active agents, bringing the total number to approximately 264,000.

“We continued to progress in building our fintech ecosystem and executing its growth strategy by reopening the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) interface for inbound and outbound transfers and strengthening our control systems, enabling us to accelerate full commercial activities and grow active wallets,” the CEO said.

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Toriola added that the limited availability of the new notes resulted in cash shortages, which impacted our customers’ ability to recharge through physical airtime vouchers (affecting mostly customers who did not have access to digital recharge channels) and over-the-counter (OTC) transactions within our MoMo agent network. The cash shortages affected the broader macroeconomy, with a consequent significant impact on the private sector.

“As a result, active MoMo PSB wallets rose by 1.2 million in Q1 to 3.2 million, accounting for 43.2 percent of our fintech users. However, the impact of the cash shortages during the period slowed OTC transactions, resulting in a 31.1 percent reduction in our total fintech users to 7.4 million. However, our base began to recover towards the end of March as cash shortages eased.” MTN reported in the Q1 statement.

The company’s financial results also highlighted that its active data users increased by 14.7 percent to 41.2 million in Q1 2023, and active fintech subscribers rose by 8.6 percent (Growth was led by revenue from our core fintech services (wallet and super-agent business).

“Active data subscribers rose by 1.7 million, benefitting from our efforts to drive data conversion in new and existing subscribers. During the quarter, we focused on enhancing the capacity and coverage of our 4G and 5G networks, which supported rising data traffic.”

The statement further disclosed that total data traffic increased by 50.3 percent, while 4G traffic constitutes 81.6 percent (up by 5.5pp). In addition, MTN rolled out additional 170 5G sites in Q1, bringing the population coverage to 4 percent and expanding the network experience to more smartphone users.