Telecoms giant MTN Nigeria reports a massive victory in profits for 2022

MTN Nigeria has reported a massive win in its full-year results and managed to reward shareholders with bumped-up dividends.

The telecommunications company released its results for the year ended December, showing a surge in profit and massive growth of its fintech business.

Nigeria is the top profit-making market for the South African-based telecoms group, generating the lion’s share of the telco’s revenue.

In the year, MTN Nigeria’s profit before tax grew by 22.3% to N5 34 billion, and for shareholders, the proposed final dividend is N10 per share.

Karl Tiriola is MTN Nigeria’s CEO and he said 2022 was challenging due to global macro-economic and geopolitical volatility, resulting in higher inflation, supply chain uncertainties, foreign exchange volatility, and availability.

“In Nigeria, inflation reached a 17-year high of 21.5% in November before moderating slightly to 21.3% in December, bringing the average for the year to 18.8% and putting pressure on consumer spending,” he said.

“We continued to manage and invest in the resilience of our business and networks, expanding coverage and capacity with a focus on expense efficiencies and disciplined capital allocation.

“We became the first mobile network operator to launch a 5G network in Nigeria, providing coverage in key cities in the six geopolitical regions. Since its commercial launch in September 2022, we have rolled out 588 sites and brought the 5G network to 5G-enabled smartphones, starting with iPhone users.

“In this regard, we made good progress towards the execution of Ambition 2025, while delivering commercial and financial performance in line with our medium-term guidance.”

According to reports coming through to BusinessTech Africa, it is indicated that its mobile subscribers increased by 10.5% to 75.6 million.

Looking at other key metrics for the year 2022, MTN Nigeria’s service revenue grew by 21.5% to N2 trillion, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 22% margin to N1.1 trillion.

“Our strong commercial momentum, supported by an accelerated investment in our network, enabled growth across all revenue lines,” added Toriola.

“As a result, we recorded a 21.5% increase in service revenue, above the average inflation rate and in line with our medium-term growth guidance.

“Our ability to maintain service revenue growth while unlocking efficiencies through disciplined execution of our expense efficiency programme led to a 22% growth in EBITDA and a 0.2pp expansion in EBITDA margin to 53.2%, in line with our medium-term target range.”