MTN sees big expansion in profit margin - Ralph Mupita — MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita

MTN Group said on Monday that its operating profit margin – measured using Ebitda – jumped by 5.3 percentage points year on year in the three months to end-March 2025.

The margin from earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation climbed to 44.1% on the back of an “encouraging acceleration in operational momentum”, the group said.

Customer numbers are also nearing 300 million, ending the reporting period on 296.8 million clients across its 16 markets.

Service revenue growth was 19.8% in constant currency terms, aided by a good performance in MTN’s important West African markets of Nigeria and Ghana.

Highlights

Highlights of the latest quarterly reporting period include:

Group service revenue increased by 10.4%, or 19.8% in constant currency terms and accounting for the impact of pro forma adjustments;
Data revenue climbed by 17.9% (28.7% in constant currency terms); voice was down 0.1% (or up 9.8% in constant currencies); and fintech revenue climbed 17.2% (25.2%);
Total subscribers increased by 4.7% to 296.8 million;
Active data subscribers were up by 9.1 % to 161.7 million;
Active Mobile Money monthly active users increased by 1.1% to 62.2 million; and
Data traffic increased by 30.4% to 5.7 exabytes.

“MTN reported a robust performance for Q1 2025, anchored in the continued strong execution of our strategic and operational priorities, and buoyed by improved macroeconomic conditions in key markets,” said group CEO Ralph Mupita in a statement.

“We invested R7.5-billion (excluding leases) of capex in our networks and platforms in support of our commercial initiatives, to sustain the encouraging strong growth in our business.”

MTN said its South African operation – its largest operating subsidiary outside Nigeria – “continued to navigate competitive challenges, most notably in prepaid, with service revenue up by 2.6%”.

“For MTN South Africa, the focus remains on recovering the prepaid performance along with the business’s profitability and free cash flow profile,” the group said.

Key quarterly figures from the South African operation include:

Service revenue increased by 2.6% and data revenue increased by 3.9%, while outgoing voice revenue declined by 3.2%;
Total subscribers grew by 5.6% to 39.2 million, with post-paid customers up by 6.7% to 4.4 million, “buoyed by a stronger uptake of integrated voice and data plans, as well as home propositions”. Prepaid subscribers grew by 4.5% to 29.1 million;
Wholesale service revenue increased by 3.9% (including incoming voice revenue);
Enterprise service revenue increased by 12.3%;
Digital revenue decreased by 0.3%;
Fintech revenue increased by 2.4%;
Ebitda decreased by 2.6% (down 2.3% excluding gains/losses from the disposal of towers);
Ebitda margin increased by 0.2 percentage points to 36.7% (up 0.4 percentage points excluding towers); and
Capex of R1.2-billion, excluding leases.

‘Value-seeking’

“MTN South Africa sustained a solid operational and commercial performance in Q1. While consumers benefitted from slightly improved spending power, customer behaviour within telecoms spend remained value-seeking and dynamic in the context of constrained economic growth and heightened competition in the sector,” the group said.

Total data revenue delivered encouraging growth of 3.9% and contributed 48.3% to MTN South Africa’s total service revenue, from 47.7% a year ago. “This growth was driven by a 6.7% increase in active data subscribers to 21.8 million, with a 19.3% rise in data traffic.”

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Data usage per active prepaid data subscriber grew to nearly 3.8GB/month (up 14.8% year on year), while an average active post-paid data subscriber’s usage increased to 23.7GB/month (up 10.4%), with the bulk of the growth attributed to fixed-wireless access, as more customers adopt home propositions, MTN said.

In Nigeria, meanwhile, MTN said it reported a “strong” first quarter. “Building on the momentum from Q4 2024, Q1 results place MTN Nigeria firmly on the path to restoring profitability and achieving a positive net asset position within the current financial year, while increasing investments to improve network and service quality,” it said. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media