MTN has released its latest quarterly update for the period ended 30 September 2018.<\/p>\n
Over the period, the telecommunications group said that it has seen an increase in both group service (up 10% YoY) and group data revenue (up 23.9% YoY).<\/p>\n
This arrives on the back of a quarter-on-quarter\u00a0increase of group subscribers by 2.5 million to 225.4 million, it said.<\/p>\n
MTN noted that it benefited from the particularly strong performance of operations in Nigeria and Ghana, while some operations in its West and Central Africa (WECA) region remained under pressure.<\/p>\n
It added that MTN South Africa is continuing to execute on operational improvements.<\/p>\n
MTN South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n MTN South Africa’s margin on earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was little changed YoY at 34.5%, down from 34.8%.<\/p>\n MTN noted that the lower sequential EBITDA margin was largely impacted by higher device prices following the weakness in the rand exchange rate and increased device sales in the quarter.<\/p>\n Data and digital revenue increased by 12.5% and 9.9% respectively, while outgoing voice revenue declined by 8.4%.<\/p>\n “In a weak economy, consumers felt the pressure of a higher VAT rate, becoming increasingly price sensitive,” MTN said.<\/p>\n “Prepaid service revenue increased 0.5% and postpaid service revenue increased by 1.9%.<\/p>\n “MTN South Africa took steps to transform data prices, including introducing attractive social media bundles and CVM offerings.<\/p>\n “As a result, customers optimised their data and voice spend and the number of active data subscribers increased by 6.7% QoQ to 13.5 million,” it said.<\/p>\n MTN added that the consumer postpaid business maintained its positive momentum, the stabilisation of the enterprise business continued, and the wholesale business gained traction.<\/p>\n “At the end of the quarter, we had 23.7 million prepaid users (down 3,4% QoQ), 2.9 million postpaid subscribers (up 2.1% QoQ) and 2.8 million telemetry subscribers,” it said.<\/p>\n
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