Figures from MTN Group’s 2018 full year investor presentation show the company may have joined the ranks of firms with over N1 trillion in revenue in the country.
Revenue in Nigeria rose from N887 billion in 2017 to N1.03 trillion in 2018 an increase of 17.1% year on year.
Nigerian operations also accounted for 28.2% of revenue made by the group.
The company, which may be listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange by the second quarter of 2019, would thus be the first trillion Naira firm on the NSE. Dangote Cement had revenue of N901 billion for the 2018 financial year.
Growth was across all segments. Voice revenue rose by 18.7%, while data revenue jumped 40.1%. Data traffic also increased by 56.3%
Still dominant in Nigeria
The company also continues to maintain dominance in the Nigerian telecommunications space.
Data from the presentation shows the company has 50.4% of the market space, with 58.1 million subscribers as at the fourth quarter of 2018.
This represents a 11.3% or 5.9 million increase from the 52.2 million subscribers recorded in the corresponding period of 2017. Nigeria thus accounts for about 25% of the group’s 232 million subscribers.
MTN Nigeria had a total of 43.9 million data users, of which 18.6 million were active data users. The company also had an estimated 21.6 million smartphone users on its network. MB per active data was stood at 1177.
Average revenue per user stood at N1534.73 as at the fourth quarter of 2018, up from the N1483.52 as at the last quarter of 2017.
Network expansion
The company rolled out 519 2G sites, 2342 3G sites, and 1338 4G sites last year.
Good times ahead
The Group in its annual report has also forecast double-digit growth in Nigeria in the medium term. >
We have revised our medium-term (three to five years) guidance on service revenue growth from upper-single-digit in constant currency terms to double-digit growth, driven by double-digit growth from MTN Nigeria and mid-single-digit growth from MTN South Africa