On Thursday, telecom giant MTN Group announced that its first-half earnings grew 46.5 percent. The company also revealed that it had received a $35 million buyout offer for its Afghanistan business, signaling an imminent exit from the Middle East.
The company failed to disclose the buyer but while on a call with journalists, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita said that the gross of $35 million would be paid over a period of time that he did not also specify and that proceeds would be $31 million.
According to him, the completion of the deal would kick off the company’s exit from the Middle Eastern markets where it is currently operational. The announcement follows the sale of MTN Yemen and the abandonment of its Syrian operation last year. The company’s 49 percent financial investment in Irancell will continue to be managed under the company’s portfolio.
The decision to exit from the Middle East was first announced by the company in 2020. The company said it wanted to focus on its core African operations adding that the plan was part of its effort to simplify its structure and reduce the exposure to markets characterized by risks. The company is currently operational in 19 markets.
The company reported earnings per share of 567 cents in the first quarter of 2022 ended June 30th. This figure is up from the 387 cents recorded in the first half of 2021. MTN Group’s service revenue grew 14.8 percent to $5.71 billion thanks to an increased demand for data services. MTN South Africa had a service revenue growth of 4.1 percent, while its Nigerian and Ghanaian counterparts recorded growth of 19.9 percent and 29.3 percent respectively.
Data revenue was up 35.9 percent and was supported by a 14.2 percent YoY growth in active data subscribers and a 25.5 percent increase in data usage. Voice revenue which is the company’s biggest generator of revenue saw a growth of only 1.9 percent. This is mostly because people have begun to substitute voice calls with data calls.
The company’s fintech revenue grew 14 percent and was impacted by a deliberate decision to cut peer-to-peer pricing as well as the introduction of new fintech taxes and levies in some markets, including Ghana.
The company says it has lowered its prices as it is looking to reduce the burden customers face and this also had an impact on transaction value.
The company remains one of Africa’s biggest telecommunications operators.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
