New Telegraph

MTN records N337.7bn revenue in 3 months

Earnings hit N975.8bn in nine months lData’s revenue rise by 55.5%

Largest telecommunications by subscriber number in Nigeria, MTN, generated a total of N337.7 billion from all its services between June and September this year, the company’s financial statement has revealed. The Q3 result, which was released yesterday, showed that the company had cumulatively realised N975.8 billion from voice, data, and its other digital services in the last nine months. Year-on-year, MTN recorded a 16.5 per cent increase in revenue in the third quarter of 2020 compared with Q3 2019 when its revenue stood at N289.6 billion.

While voice service remained the major revenue source for the operator, the increase in income was driven largely by revenue from data subscriptions, which rose to N87.6 billion in the quarter under review, a 55 per cent increase compared with N56.3 billion recorded in the same period last year. Voice revenue increased marginally by 7 per cent from N207.7 billion recorded in Q3 2019 to N222.3 billion in Q3 2020. MTN’s profit before tax in Q3 stood at N72 billion, a 2.2 per cent increase over N70.5 billion recorded in the same period last year. The company’s profit after tax for the quarter, however, declined by 0.7 percent from N49.7 billion recorded in the same period last year to N49.4 billion this year.

Commenting on the result, MTN Nigeria’s Chief Executive Officer, Ferdi Moolman, said, “during the period under review, we saw volatility in both voice and data revenue, affecting the trajectory of our overall service revenue, as well as pressure on costs, which continues to impact our operating margins, dampening profitability.” He added that following a decline in voice traffic and acceleration in data during the COVID-19 lockdown in Q2, the company has seen a normalisation of traffic as restrictions have been removed, with a recovery in voice traffic and continued growth in data.

“This has supported a 13.9 per cent growth in service revenue, with an acceleration of growth to 16.5 per cent in Q3 specifically,” Moolman stated. According to the MTN CEO, while data revenue rose by 55.5 per cent due to an increase in data usage and traffic, revenue from digital and fintech services rose by 114.3 per cent and 28.3 per cent respectively.

He said the company saw a significant increase in its subscriber base with the addition of 3.9 million customers in the quarter under review, which brought its total subscribers to 75 million. “Cumulative net additions totalled 10.7 million in an annual cycle with one quarter remaining. We also connected 1.7 million new users to the internet in Q3 and 5.5 million for the nine months, bringing our active subscribers to 30.7 million,” he said.

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