COVID-19: MTN Nigeria’s revenue dips by 6% but data income hits N79bn

MTN Nigeria has reported a six percent decline in total revenue in the second quarter of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact businesses.

According to the half-year financial results published by the company on Wednesday, data revenue grew by 7.8 percent from N74.1 billion in the first quarter of 2020 to N79.9 billion in the second quarter.

However, voice revenue declined by -9.6 percent from N226.9 billion in the first quarter to N205.2 billion in the second quarter.

On a year-on-year basis, the telco said it added 9 million new mobile subscribers from 62 million in half-year 2019 to 71 million in half-year 2020.

Profit before tax declined by 17.1 percent from N76.3 billion in Q1 2020 to N63.2 billion in Q2 while profit after tax declined by 14.5 percent from N51 billion in Q1 to N43.7 billion in Q2.

Commenting on the results, Ferdi Moolman, said: “Following a strong first quarter, we experienced a challenging operating environment in the second quarter characterised by COVID-19 induced lockdowns and the broader macro-economic impact it has had”.

Speaking on the impact of the COVID-19 relief packages introduced by the company, Moolman said 75 percent of the telco’s subscribers used the free SMS package, sending over 4.3 billion messages.

“Through various contributions and initiatives, we supported our customers, communities and government in the transition through this unique situation.

“This included support for the Federal Inland Revenue Services’ revenue acceleration efforts with an early payment of our taxes ahead of established deadlines.

“Customers used more than 3,000TB of free data to access zero-rated healthcare websites.

“We prioritised the upgrade of our network capacity to accommodate growth in traffic while continuing to expand 4G network coverage, albeit at a slower pace given the constraints presented by COVID-19.”

Moolman said the impacts of COVID-19 are still uncertain and the company remains confident in the “resilience of the business, and the ability of our employees to adapt as the situation develops”.