MTN profits grow by 38.8% to US$560m as subscriber numbers rise to 64.3m

NIGERIA – MTN Nigeria, the largest telecommunication company in Nigeria, has recorded a profit N202.1bn (about US$560.11 million) profit after tax in 2019 representing a growth of  38.8 percent as compared to the 2018 results.

The telecom company declared a final dividend of N4.97 kobo per share as recommended by the Board of Directors.

In its full year audited financial report for the year ended December 31, 2019, MTN also revealed that its mobile subscribers increased by 6.1 million to reach 64.3 million.

Active data users on the company’s network also  increased by 6.5 million to reach 25.2 million while service revenue increased by 12.6 per cent to N1.2tn.

Commenting on the results, MTN Nigeria Chief Executive Officer, Ferdi Moolman said the company closed the year with 132 cities covered by 4G.

Moolman also revealed that MTN became the first mobile network operator in West Africa to demonstrate the capability of 5G technology.

He said the company had made significant progress in resolving the dispute with the Attorney General of the Federation on the adequacy of taxes and duties paid.

“We have discontinued the legal action against the AGF following the transfer of the matter to the relevant authorities and look forward to a final resolution,” Moolman said.

“We have always fulfilled our tax obligations and remain committed to maintaining good relationships with all regulatory authorities.”

Moolman further noted that although the last quarter is usually seasonally strong, service revenue growth (14 per cent) in Q4 outpaced the seasonal effect.

In the third quarter, the company focused on several initiatives to enhance coverage and drive data use, including expanding its 4G network with more than 6,000 additional sites.

Moolman explained that these initiative resulted in the promising results that the company reported at the end of Q3 2019 and played a role in the company’s enhanced performance fourth quarter.

“Corresponding with the increase in our active data subscriber net additions by 2.9 million in Q4 2019, our 4G population coverage rose by 8.4pp to 43.8 per cent, giving people in 68 additional cities access to 4G,” Moolman said.

He further said that MTN had committed itself in investing N600bn (about US$1.66 billion) in Nigeria in the next three years.