MTN Nigeria sees improved Q1 2019 results, gains 2.1m subscribers 

Ferdi Moolman, the chief executive officer of MTN, said that in 2019, MTN Nigeria adopted the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS)16 accounting standards in line with global best practice.

Moolman said service revenue increased by 13.4 per cent; Voice revenue increased by 12.7 per cent; data revenue increased by 32.4 per cent; digital revenue decreased by 68.0 per cent; while Fintech revenue increased by 22.9 per cent.

Others are earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin which increased by 11.5pp to 53.3 per cent (IAS 17: 44.2 per cent); and mobile subscribers increased by 2.1 million to 60.3 million.

 “Our first quarter performance was in line with expectations, as service revenue remained resilient with double-digit growth on the back of improvements in voice and data revenues. “We connected a further 2.1 million people to our network, providing them access to worldwide communication services, while an additional 1.7 million people are able to access the possibilities that the internet provides.

“This growth is built on our focus on customer-centric delivery and in particular on improved customer retention, our continuous focus on value for money propositions and further network roll-out and enhancement. Q1 2019 saw a significant increase in our capital expenditure programme, with a focus on LTE services, where we rolled out 1,188 sites across our key focus cities.

 “In addition, the successful transfer of our 800MHz spectrum from Visafone to MTN Nigeria will further enable improvements in network coverage and service quality,’’ he said.

Moolman said the company had made significant progress to be listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) following the conversion of MTN Nigeria to a public company and the successful registration of our ordinary shares with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).