MTN Nigeria adds 1.7m subscribers in three months

April 30, 2022 9:13 am

Packets of MTN Group Ltd. sim cards sit for sale at a roadside kiosk in Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015. MTN, Africa's largest wireless operator, remains in negotiations with Nigerian regulators over a $5.2 billion fine for failing to comply with an order to disconnect customers with unregistered phone cards, according to a person familiar with the matter. Photographer: George Osodi/Bloomberg

MTN Nigeria Communications Plc says it added 1.7 million subscribers to its network in the first quarter of 2022.

MTN said this on Friday in its unaudited results for the first quarter (Q1) ended March 31, 2022.

According to the report, MTN said its active data subscribers rose by 10.5 per cent year-on-year to 35.9 million, with 1.6 million added in Q1.

TheCable understands that MTN Nigeria and other telcos are trying to recover from losses recorded as a result of regulatory restrictions on sim cards and activation by the federal government in 2021

“Although our mobile subscriber base declined by 1.9 per cent YoY from 71.5 million in March 2021 to 70.2 million, we sustained the growth trajectory from Q4 2021 as we ramp up capacity for SIM registration and NIN enrolment,” it said.

“As a result, we added 1.7 million subscribers in Q1 2022. In addition, active data subscribers rose by 10.5 per cent year-on-year to 35.9 million, with 1.6 million added in Q1.”

On the regulatory front, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had required all operators to restrict outgoing calls for subscribers whose SIMs were not associated with national identity numbers (NINs).

MTN said it has supported the federal government’s regulation on SIM enrollment and also complied with the directive.

“Following the NCC’s directive on 4 April 2022 that all operators should restrict outgoing calls for subscribers whose SIMs are not associated with NINs, we implemented the directive on approximately 19 million of our affected subscribers at that date,” it added.

“However, subscribers whose outgoing calls were restricted for non-submission of their NINs require their NINs to be verified before being reactivated.

“As of 25 April 2022, about 8.7 million of those restricted submitted their NINs for verification, of which approximately 1.2 million have been reactivated, many of whom are high-value customers.”

The telecom company said approximately 60 million subscribers have submitted their NINs, as at April 25, representing about 85 per cent of our subscriber base.

Meanwhile, MTN Nigeria said active subscribers on its fintech platform –MoMo — recorded approximately 10.7 million active users as of the end of March 2022, and 166,000 active MoMo agents.

It added that fintech revenue rose by 46.5 per cent on the back of the growing adoption of its fintech services.

Also, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 25.7 per cent to N257.1 billion with an increased margin of 1.5 per cent to 54.6 per cent.

The company’s service revenue also increased by 22 per cent to N469.8 billion, while profit after tax grew to N96.8 billion, representing an increase of 31.3 per cent.