MTN Nigeria's revenue increased by 13.9 percent year-on-year to NGN 975.67 billion for the nine months to 30 September from NGN 856.55 billion in the same period of 2019. Service revenue increased by 13.9 percent to NGN 973.81 billion from NGN 854.94 billion in 2019. Mobile subscribers increased by 3.9 million to 75.0 million and active data users increased by 1.7 million to 30.7 million.
The performance in data was delivered by a combination of more subscribers, greater usage in terms of megabytes per user, and ultimately traffic, supported by increased network capacity and 4G penetration. Data traffic rose by 135.6 percent year on year and average usage by 70.4 percent.
MTN added 2.9 million new smartphones to its network in the third quarter, bringing smartphone penetration to 45.2 percent of base, up from 43.5 percent in Q2 and 41.7 percent in Q3 2019.
Nine-month EBITDA grew by 9.1 percent to NGN 497.86 billion compared to NGN 456.43 billion in 2019. The EBITDA margin declined by 2.3 percentage points (pp) to 51.0 percent. Nine-month net profit declined by 3.3 percent to NGN 144.24 billion from NGN 149.22 billion in 2019, reflecting an increase in taxation mainly due to lower investment allowance and exempt income. Earnings per share (EPS) fell by 3.3 percent to NGN 0.71 7.
Capital expenditure increased by 26.1 percent to NGN 194.23 billion from NGN 154.06 billion in 2019. Excluding right of use assets, capex was down by 2.5 percent to NGN 130.1 billion.
In the third quarter, revenue increased by 16.6 percent to NGN 337.67 billion from NGN 289.56 billion in the same period in 2019. EBITDA grew by 10.9 percent to NGN 170.80 billion from NGN 154.06 billion in 2019. Capex increased by 46.2 percent to NGN 60.16 billion from NGN 41.14 billion in 2019.
