MTN Group maintained the strength and durability of the balance sheet, carried out critical strategic initiatives, and produced significant commercial momentum in the first half of 2024. In the six months ending June 30, 2024, data service revenue grew by 21% in constant currency, while fintech service revenue jumped by 27%.
With gross proceeds of R1.7 billion, we made good progress to further expand the level of local ownership of MTN Ghana and MTN Uganda by its Ambition 2025 goal. In keeping with its efforts to streamline its operations and optimise its portfolio, the Group has successfully concluded its activities in Afghanistan and Guinea-Bissau.
At the end of June 2024, MTN had 288 million members spread over 18 markets. Of them, 150 million were active data users, up over 9%, increasing the amount of data traffic on MTN’s network by over 33% to 9,054 petabytes.
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MTN’s fintech transaction volumes increased by 18% to 9.7 billion over the period, thanks to a more than 9% increase in active Mobile Money users, who stood at 66 million.
MTN committed to investing approximately R13 billion in capital expenditures to enhance its business IT systems and 4G and 5G networks and to accommodate this ongoing demand acceleration. The holding company leverage ratio of 1.6x and the improved US dollar to rand debt mix of 22:78—well within our target mix of 40:60—reflect the continued strength of the Group’s balance sheet.
Challenges of Nigeria’s naira devaluation and Sudan crisis
The impact of weaker currencies, especially the naira against the rand, and the ongoing crisis in Sudan on the Group’s reported results obscured the good underlying performance.
Ralph Mupita, president and CEO of MTN Group, stated, “Although the commercial momentum and strategy execution was solid in H1, macro headwinds impacted reported results.” “The most notable influence on reported results during the period was the sharp devaluation of the naira.”
Adjusted headline profits per share (HEPS) dropped by 50% to 373 cents, and adjusted return on equity (ROE) dropped by 4.2 percentage points to 20.2% due to the devaluation of the naira, the translation into the reporting currency, and the Sudanese conflict.
MTN South Africa makes progress
Regarding topline growth and earnings, MTN South Africa, which has now finished its network resilience investment, showed encouraging progress from Q1 24 to Q2 24. He also mentioned that the investment put it in a position to offer an average network availability of more than 95% under stage 6 load shedding. With less load shedding in Q2 2024, network availability at the end of June 2024 was 99%.
Mupita stated, “MTN Nigeria delivered a strong underlying performance, despite the severe macro impacts on its financial performance,” highlighting good progress in several important projects, such as revenue acceleration, capex optimisation, and debt reduction denominated in US dollars.
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MTN Nigeria’s contract with IHS and ATC to improve its earnings
The renegotiation of MTN Nigeria’s tower contracts with IHS and ATC has just been completed. The renegotiated contracts will help the company grow its earnings and cash flow to address MTN Nigeria’s negative equity position. Talks about raising the voice and Internet tariffs with Nigerian authorities are ongoing.
In a joint statement, MTN Group and MTN Zakhele Futhi declared their intention to extend the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment program for an additional three years, contingent on shareholder approval. MTN Group and MTN South Africa hold a level 1 B-BBEE contributor designation.
In terms of the future, MTN, commemorating 30 years in the industry this year, reiterated its medium-term outlook and plans to pay a dividend of 330 cents per share for FY24.
Over the medium term, Mupita stated, “We will continue to execute our Ambition 2025 strategy to drive growth and unlock value for all stakeholders.” “The macro backdrop in our markets is still difficult in the near term, but key markets’ GDP, inflation, and currencies are expected to improve by 2025.”
