{"id":883250,"date":"2026-11-09T08:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T06:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=883250"},"modified":"2026-11-09T08:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T06:27:15","slug":"mtn-hits-323-million-customers-with-r100-billion-finish-line-in-sight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/883250\/mtn-hits-323-million-customers-with-r100-billion-finish-line-in-sight\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN hits 323 million customers with R100 billion finish line in sight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MTN is continuing to grow in Africa and is looking to complete its R100 billion acquisition of IHS, a major infrastructure company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has increased its total active customers to 322.9 million, a 7.2% increase over the last nine months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mobile network giant revealed the information in an operating update published on the Stock Exchange News Service (SENS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group increased its service revenue by 17.2% on a year-on-year basis, up every month since May 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Group service revenue increased by 9.9% to R176.2 billion on a reported basis, up 17.2% in constant currency,” MTN said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company’s Earnings Before Interest, Taxation, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA) also increased by 22.9% during the nine-month period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This increase was largely driven by operations in Nigeria and Ghana, where the company’s EBITDA rose 32.8% and 42.1%, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also saw its EBITDA increase in Rwanda by 26.9% and in Zambia by 54.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa, MTN’s EBITDA growth was 7%, reflecting the maturity of the country’s mobile services industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group president and CEO, Ralph Mupita, noted that MTN’s results were weaker on a rand basis due to the rand being strong against the dollar over the last nine months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Reported growth in rand was lower (service revenue up 9.9%; EBITDA up 17.7%) as the rand was on average c.10% stronger against the US dollar, which reduced the rand value of results from our Africa ex-South Africa operations,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mupita also noted that data revenue was now one of the group’s key sources of revenue, accounting for more than 50% of its total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Demand across the Group remained robust,” he noted. “Customer numbers increased by 7.2% to 322.9 million, and data revenue grew by 28.2%: it now accounts for 50.4% of service revenue.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“EBITDA growth outpaced service revenue growth, reflecting operating leverage and our expense efficiency programme, which absorbed higher energy costs.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mupita said MTN’s focus for the remainder of the year would be on sustaining its strong performance from the first three quarters, while addressing specific challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“For the rest of the year, we will focus on sustaining the commercial momentum across our markets, carrying MTN SA\u2019s Q3 improvement into Q4, restoring fintech growth towards our medium-term targets, addressing the specific challenges in MTN Uganda and completing the IHS transaction,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IHS Tower deal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The IHS Towers transaction was previously announced by MTN and would result in the group acquiring approximately 29,000 towers across Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN is currently a minority shareholder in the company and plans to take it private by acquiring all outstanding IHS shares at $8.50 per share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal is valued at $6.2 billion (~R100 billion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“By reintegrating the tower assets, MTN will be able to internalise the margin currently paid to IHS, benefit from current and future incremental third-party revenues, improve cost predictability and unlock significant long-term value embedded in its existing investment,” MTN said in February 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October 2026, the Competition Commission approved the proposed transaction<\/a>, with conditions to address public interest concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Commission found that the proposed transaction raises competition and public interest concerns,\u201d the Commission said at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo address these concerns, the Commission has recommended conditions that mainly seek to protect jobs and historically disadvantaged persons (HDP) ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conditions also required that the acquisition not disadvantage non-MTN customers and that it ensure IHS remains operationally independent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo customer must be disadvantaged relative to MTN SA, and fair, equitable and non-discriminatory access to infrastructure by mobile network operators (MNOs) ensured,\u201d the Competition Commission said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe conditions safeguard competitively sensitive customer information, support small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) and HDP participation in new tower sites,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Commission\u2019s recommended conditions also maintain IHS as an operationally independent entity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN’s revenue has grown sharply in the last nine months, with the company now focused on completing its acquisition of IHS Towers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":820196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2119679639366861304","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2266587514161647","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18099029318661134","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1516,6360,28,21748],"class_list":["post-883250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-competition-commission","tag-ihs-towers","tag-mtn","tag-ralph-mupita"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883250","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883250"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883275,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883250\/revisions\/883275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}