People are kissing Airtime goodbye in South Africa
South Africans are increasingly moving away from traditional airtime, with mobile data and internet-based communication becoming a much larger part of how they communicate.
MTN South Africa’s interim financial results for the six months ended 30 June 2026 show a clear decline in traditional voice usage, while data consumption continues to surge.
MTN said its South African voice revenue declined by 10.2% year-on-year during the period. The company attributed the decline to a fundamental change in customer behaviour.
“Voice revenue declined by 10.2% YoY, reflecting a structural shift in customer preferences as consumers increasingly migrate from out-of-bundle usage to bundled offers and pure data use,” MTN said.
“This includes the adoption of VoIP and digital messaging platforms in place of traditional voice services.”
This shift is particularly significant in the prepaid market, which accounts for most of MTN South Africa’s customer base.
Prepaid service revenue declined by 3.3% year on year, with MTN pointing to several factors, including an adjustment to its airtime lending offering and “ongoing voice substitution by consumers”.
In other words, customers are increasingly using data bundles to communicate via platforms such as WhatsApp, FaceTime, and other over-the-top (OTT) and voice-over-internet (VoIP) services, rather than paying for traditional cellular minutes.
At the same time, demand for mobile data is rising sharply. MTN South Africa’s network data traffic increased by 27.7% year on year, highlighting how quickly customer behaviour is changing.
Data revenue increased by 4.0%, with prepaid data revenue growing 4.4%. MTN said the pace of growth accelerated in the second quarter, with data revenue growth reaching 5.0%, up from 3.8% in the first quarter.
The amount of data consumed by individual customers also increased. Average monthly data consumption among prepaid subscribers rose by 23.6% to 4.9GB.
Postpaid customers consumed considerably more, averaging 32.3GB per month – an increase of 32.0% year on year.
MTN said this was supported by the growing adoption of fixed wireless access and home connectivity products, including Shesh@5G and MTN AirFibre.
Strong financial performance
The trend in South Africa mirrors a broader change across MTN’s operations. At the group level, data remained the company’s primary growth engine, accounting for 49.9% of service revenue.
MTN’s Ghana operation also reported a decline in traditional voice revenue, which fell 1.6%. The group said this was “consistent with the structural migration of customer communications from traditional voice towards data-led and OTT channels”.
MTN Group service revenue increased by 17.5% in constant currency, or 9.7% on a reported basis, to R115.3 billion.
Growth was led by Ghana and Nigeria, while South Africa recorded more modest service revenue growth of 1.5%.
MTN’s overall financial performance remained strong. Group EBITDA before once-off items increased by 24.4% in constant currency to R56.0 billion, while adjusted headline earnings per share increased by 21.3% to 793 cents.
Reported headline earnings per share fell 5.8%, however, partly due to a R3.9 billion non-cash impairment of MTN’s 49% stake in Irancell, alongside foreign exchange losses in South Sudan.
MTN deployed R19.7 billion in capital expenditure during the period and increased cash upstreamed from subsidiaries by 69.5% to R13.9 billion.
The company did not declare an interim dividend but confirmed a R6 billion share buyback programme, which is expected to be executed after the current closed period.
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