MTN Group on Thursday, said it posted an encouraging set of results for the six months ended 30 June 2019 in the context of difficult trading conditions across its major markets.
Its President and CEO, Rob Shuter, said commercially, the telco had strong subscriber growth of 7.7 million in the first six months of the year to reach a total of 240 million subscribers.
The number of active data users, he said, grew by 3.5 million to 82 million and while 30-day active Mobile Money users grew by 2,4 million to 30 million.
Shuter said: “We had a good first half, reporting solid financial results, good commercial momentum and encouraging strategic progress.
“We saw growth of 12per cent in adjusted headline earnings per share, which is the first time that we have delivered growth in this measure in recent years. Our service revenue grew just below 10 per cent and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) just above 10per cent, both on a constant currency basis. Our holding company leverage remains stable at 2.3x, well within our guidance range of 2 to 2.5x. And, as we grew revenue and carefully managed our investment programme, we saw capital expenditure (capex) intensity drop further, to 16.9per cent.
“Our continued focus on the customer experience has seen us record brand NPSˆ leadership across more than 50 per cent of the portfolio, with 12 markets now leading. That contributed to MTN being named the most valuable South African brand in the Brand Finance South Africa 50 report and the most admired African brand by Brand Africa 100.”
He said during the period, the telco had some landmark events. “We successfully completed the listing of MTN Nigeria on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and our e-commerce joint venture Jumia listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Within three months of announcing our asset realisation programme, which is targeting at least R15 billion over the next few years, we delivered R2,1 billion in proceeds.
“Our advanced instant messaging platform, Ayoba, is now live in three of our West African markets and has more than 300 000 active monthly users. We are very pleased with the formal approval of our super-agent licence in Nigeria, which clears the way for the launch of Phase 1 of our Nigeria fintech business while we await a banking licence,” he added.