Multinational mobile telecommunications company, MTN has announced that the firm made a total profit of N181 billion for the first half of the year 2022. This profit with a 28% increase, was disclosed to be higher than the amount that was recorded in the same period of last year which was at N141.8 billion.
Shares in the company gained at 5.3 percent on Friday. Its financial reports show that this profit is attributed to the boost in the company’s revenue in the first half of the year by 20% in spite of the double-digit inflation witnessed during the period. The total revenue of the firm for the first six months was N950 billion, a 20% increase from 791 billion in the first half of last year.
The highlights of the results include; Mobile subscribers increased by 7.6% to 74.1 million (Added 5.7 million subscribers in H1 2022); Active data users increased by 13.2% to 36.8 million (Added 2.5 million active users in H1 2022); Active fintech subscribers rose by 87.3% to 11.5 million (4.2 million registered (2.4 million active) MoMo wallets since the launch of PSB on 19 May 2022).
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Other include Service revenue increased by 19.9% to N947.9 billion; Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) grew by 22.1% to N509.3 billion; EBITDA margin increased by 0.9 percentage points (pp) to 53.6%; Profit before tax (PBT) grew by 24.9% to N268.6 billion;
Earnings per share (EPS) rose by 28.1% to N8.92 kobo; Capital expenditure (Capex) rose by 67.1% to N311.6 billion (up 78.6% to N204.5 billion, excluding the right of use assets); Interim dividend of N5.60 kobo per share, up by 23.1%.
Commenting on the significant increase in profit of the firm, MTN Nigeria CEO, Karl Toriola disclosed that during the first quarter of the year 2022, the company made massive progress by strengthening the resilience of the business in the face of inflation that put a strain on the spending of consumers.
Also, the impact of the Russian-Ukraine war put a strain on the global supply chains across the globe, and the firm had to accelerate capital expenditure for network expansion to mitigate global supply chain and exchange rate risks.
MTN deployed Capex of N311.6 billion to accelerate the rollout of the 4G network which presently covers 75.3%, compared to 65.1% in the first quarter of the year. This doesn’t come as a surprise at all, seeing the huge profit MTN made in the first quarter of 2022. The company relentlessly continues to improve and enhance the quality and coverage of its network to accommodate the increasing demand for data.
Recall when the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), earlier this year issued a directive for all operators to restrict outgoing calls for subscribers whose SIMs are not associated with NINs. MTN, knowing full well that such a directive will affect so many of its users, had to actively engage their affected customers by supporting the NIMC in accelerating NIN enrolment of its users.
This aggressive drive of gross connection of its users to aid in NIN enrolment and Sim registration greatly benefited the firm as they added 2.5 million active data subscribers in the first half of the year 2022.
Also, following MTN’s entry into the fintech space with its MOMO payment service bank(PSB), since the launch, the company recorded 4.2 million registered MoMo wallets of which 2.4 million are active, generating MoMo transaction volume of approximately 7 million within six weeks of operations.