{"id":230285,"date":"2018-03-08T11:07:45","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T09:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=230285"},"modified":"2018-03-08T11:10:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-08T09:10:49","slug":"mtn-share-price-surges-9-after-return-to-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/230285\/mtn-share-price-surges-9-after-return-to-profit\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN share price surges 9% after return to profit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shares in mobile operator MTN advanced 8.5% in morning trade on Thursday after the group reported a return to full-year profit in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>The group&#8217;s shares have endured a torrid time over the past 18 months, having staved off a massive fine in Nigeria, and reporting a first-ever annual loss a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>By 11h00 on Thursday, shares in MTN improved R11.09 or 9.05% to R133.68 on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, having declined to a year low of R122.50, and R107 in October 2016.<\/p>\n<p>In comparison, shares in rival operator, Vodacom, traded 2.26% higher at R166.69, with the All Share Index up 0.38% to 59,189 points.<\/p>\n<p>MTN <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/230173\/mtn-reports-positive-headline-earnings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on Thursday<\/a> published its financial results for the year ended December 2017, showing a decline in group revenue to R132.8 billion, from R147.9 billion before; however, operating profit climbed to R20.6 billion, from R14.2 billion in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Group earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation climbed to R46.95 billion, from R40.75 billion before, with headline earnings per share (HEPS) of 182 cents compared to a 77 cents headline loss per share a year earlier.<\/p>\n<p>The board declared a final dividend of 450 cents per share. This, it said, is in line with the 2017 guidance of a total dividend of 700 cents per share communicated in March 2017.<\/p>\n<p>For South Africa, revenue improved marginally to R42.5 billion, from R41.3 billion, with EBITDA up to R14.7 billion, from R13.5 billion in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria, however, was disappointing, with revenue down to R36 billion, from R47.1 billion, and EBITDA down to R14.7 billion, from R13.5 billion before.<\/p>\n<p>MTN also recorded good growth in the average spend of its local user base, with ARPU increasing\u00a0from R82.59 in 1Q16, to R96.80 in 4Q17.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/223970\/mtn-plans-to-raise-r6-billion-from-the-sale-of-shares-in-its-nigerian-business-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MTN plans to raise R6 billion from the sale of shares in its Nigerian business: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shares in mobile operator MTN advanced 8.5% in morning trade on Thursday after the group reported a return to full-year profit in 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":230189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,28],"class_list":["post-230285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-mtn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230285"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230303,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230285\/revisions\/230303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}