Nigeria is where MTN's mood gets set, and for the three months to September the mood was good. MTN Nigeria, close to three-quarters owned by the JSE-listed group through a Mauritius subsidiary, said on Friday that what it earns from calls, data and other services grew 19.7% on a year earlier, speeding up every month to 21.6% in September, after a sluggish second quarter. Johannesburg had its say on Monday, when MTN closed at R212.36, up 7.03% and its biggest one-day rise in more than a year.
More of that growth now comes from people using more rather than paying more. Chief executive Karl Toriola calls it "increasingly volume-led", and the release backs him up. Active data users rose 12% to 57.2 million, and the average one got through 17.2GB a month in the quarter.
Profit grew faster than sales. For every naira it took in during the quarter, MTN Nigeria kept close to 59 kobo before interest, tax and the wear on its network, almost six kobo more than a year ago. Running costs rose 8.5%, below both sales growth and inflation, helped by a stronger naira and a savings drive. Over nine months, profit after tax was up 55%.
The lending service that went dark
The money side of the business had a lopsided quarter. Core mobile money, where customers keep and send cash on their phones, more than doubled its revenue, mostly from interest on wallet balances that have quadrupled since December. Revenue from the whole money side still fell 58.1%, to N20.3 billion, because the service that lends customers airtime and data was suspended from April to June.
That service has since resumed with several partners, which the release does not name. TechCentral points out that Optasia, the JSE-listed company that provides airtime credit to MTN customers, restarted its XtraTime service on 24 June. The pause left a bill as well: MTN Nigeria's charge for money it does not expect to collect from customers rose to N15 billion over nine months, from N2.4 billion, mostly from reassessing XtraTime debts.
The dividends travelling up the chain
For the group, the bigger change may be the cash coming home. MTN International, the Mauritius arm that holds the stake, received N655.6 billion in Nigerian dividends over the nine months, about US$490 million at September's exchange rate. In 2024, currency losses had pushed MTN Nigeria's equity below zero. It has also repaid all its foreign-currency debt and now borrows only in naira at fixed rates, so a weaker naira can no longer swell what it owes and eat into what it sends home.
MTN Nigeria says it is on track for its full-year guidance. The deadline it has set for the airtime-lending service is to have it back where MTN expected by the end of November, a little under four weeks from today. Moving the money business into a structure of its own is progressing, subject to regulators' approval.
