The average post-paid (contract) subscriber on MTN South Africa’s network consumes 21.9GB of data a month — up by nearly 44% year on year.

The figure, for the third quarter ended 30 September 2024, was not matched by similar growth in prepaid data usage, where the average active prepaid subscriber used only 6.3% more data year on year, to reach 3.2GB/month.

In the quarterly trading statement, published on Thursday, MTN Group said its South African operation recorded a 3.3% year-on-year increase in service revenue.

Data revenue grew by 2.1% to account for 47.3% of service revenue. The number of active data users increased by 11% to 21.6 million, with growth in network traffic of 32.1%, also driven by higher consumption of fixed-wireless access data.

However, voice revenue declined by 5.5%, impacted by reduced out-of-bundle usage.

Other key numbers from the update include:

Outgoing voice revenue declined by 5.5%;
Data revenue increased by 2.1%;
Fintech revenue increased by 61.8%;
Digital revenue increased by 13.6%;
Enterprise revenue increased by 12.3%;
Wholesale revenue increased by 0.1% (including incoming voice revenue);
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) increased by 2.6% (up 3% excluding a gain on the disposal of towers); and
Ebitda margin decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 36.4% (down 0.1pp to 36.3% excluding the gain on the disposal of towers).

“MTN South Africa delivered a solid performance in an operating environment that remained challenging, with positive growth across all the main business segments,” it said in the trading update.

“Despite a slight easing in inflation in the first nine months to an average 4.9% (2023: 6%), and an appreciation in the rand against the US dollar, South African consumer spend continued to be under pressure and competition in the market remained intense, especially in prepaid.”

Subscriber growth

MTN South Africa grew its subscriber base by 6.6% to reach 39.2 million active users. This equated to about 760 000 net additions in the third quarter. Net additions year to date have reached 1.8 million. Post-paid subscriber numbers grew by 2.7% to 4.2 million (excluding telemetry) and prepaid customers grew by 6.2% to 29.5 million.

National roaming revenue decreased by 13.3%, impacted by renegotiated terms with Cell C from the start of 2024. Excluding incoming voice, wholesale revenue increased by 1.2%.

Read: MTN’s tale of woe in Nigeria

Fintech revenue grew by 61.8%, driven by both XtraTime and MoMo. XtraTime was up by 55.7%, while MoMo (mobile money) revenue “scaled rapidly off a low base” on the back of ongoing expansion of the product portfolio, including insurance and lending services. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media

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