MTN Group has cemented its lead as the biggest network operator in Africa by becoming the first to reach the 300 million subscriber mark.

MTN made the announcement at its annual Ambassadors Appreciation Dinner last Wednesday that it had reached its Ambition 2025 strategy of serving 300 million customers.

MTN Group’s subscribers have risen at an accelerating pace in the past 18 months. In the operator’s 2024 financial year to end-December 2024, the group added 6.2 million subscribers to reach 291 million. This excluded markets such as Afghanistan, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea-Conakry, which MTN disposed of in the 2024 financial year.

In the six months to 30 June 2025, MTN acquired another 6.7-million subscribers – more than it achieved in the prior full year – to reach 297.7-million by the end of the period.

Of the 16 markets in African and the Middle East that MTN now operates in, Nigeria remained its largest by subscriber numbers, with 84.7 million at the end of June. Its second largest market was Iran, where it has a 49% shareholding in Irancell, with 56 million customers. The Iranian operation has been performing well financially, but repatriating funds into MTN Group has proven difficult due to US-imposed sanctions on that market.

Although outpaced by Nigeria, MTN’s home market of South Africa continued to be a significant contributor to group revenue and subscribers, with 39.8 million customers in total. MTN’s South and East Africa region – made up of Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, South Sudan, Botswana and Eswatini – contributed 43.5 million subscribers to group by 30 June. Uganda is the largest of these markets, with 22.8 million customers.

Connected home

MTN’s Western and Central Africa region comprises operations in Ghana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Benin, Congo Brazzaville and Liberia. The region had a total of 70 million subscribers on 30 June, with Ghana being the largest contributor at 30 million.

MTN’s subscriber growth has been spread relatively evenly across its operating markets. Subscriber growth in Nigeria was cut back by regulatory interventions that placed a limit on the number of Sims a single subscriber could have and rules enforcing the linkage of a registered Sim card to a valid national identity number, similar to South Africa’s Rica legislation.

Read: MTN launches integrated home-mobile plans

Breaching 300 million subscribers is a major milestone outlined in MTN’s Ambition 2025 strategy, which is two months away from reaching its conclusion. As MTN looks to 2030, it has adopted three pillars aimed at driving further subscriber and revenue growth. These are fintech, digital infrastructure and the connected home.

Its fintech strategy is driven by MTN MoMo. MoMo’s digital wallet offering has had a relatively slow start in South Africa, where formal banking penetration is higher than its other operating markets. In the rest of the continent, MoMo has helped lift subscriber growth – and even customer loyalty – by attracting and keeping clients whose core objective is access to financial products.

MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita said MTN’s digital infrastructure arm plans to expand its fibre deployments across several markets. Details, however, remain sketchy.

MTN has already made moves regarding its connected home strategy. MTN South Africa last week launched the operator’s new product offering for the connected home: MTN Sky Premium, which bundles mobile data, voice minutes, a dedicated service line/relationship manager and a home connectivity benefit.