South African leading emerging markets mobile operator, MTN Group has reported solid subscriber growth to 195 million subscribers despite intense markets competition.
According to the Group CEO, Sifiso Dabengwa –
“The Group started the year strongly, increasing subscriber numbers by 3,2% quarter on quarter to 195,4 million. This supported growth in traffic volumes and local currency revenue. In South Africa, despite a slow start to the year, MTN maintained its market share and reviewed its market offerings to be more competitive. In Nigeria, MTN continued to record a good performance in a highly competitive market.
The Group’s performance is underpinned by a strong focus on continuous improvement in network quality and coverage, wider and more effective distribution and by the introduction of various innovative and competitive products and services to our customers. Our capital expenditure programme is progressing well. This is designed to ensure the Group’s continued competitiveness and support subscriber and revenue growth into the future. The solid performance over the past quarter means we have maintained our guidance for net additions for the full 2013 year at 21 million.”
South Africa, the home country, was characterised by a weaker consumer environment as well as increased pricing competition. The business recorded 470 000 net disconnections, a quarter on quarter (QoQ) decrease of 1.9% in the traditionally weak period, which was further exacerbated by the strong subscriber growth recorded in the last quarter of 2012. In the past quarter, active data subscribers were 13,3 million, data revenue, including MTN Business and mobile data, increased approximately 15,7% YoY.
There was a continued improvement in the key operating metrics for the Nigerian business in the past quarter. The company recorded net additions of 3.9 million, an increase of 8.1% QoQ, as the market rebounded following the significant price reductions during August and September 2012. Data subscribers reached 22.8 million, and data revenue increased approximately 63.5% in local currency YoY. As per our network rollout, MTN added 450 new 2G sites and 259 co-located 3G sites during the quarter.
Meanwhile, the Group’s other operations (Large Opco Cluster) reported stable growth. MTN Ghana increased its subscriber base by 2.5% QoQ adding 290,000 users for a total of 12.024 million. MTN Irancell closed out March with 41.542 million mobile users, up 2.6% on the figure reported at end-2012. Operations in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda and Sudan also increased to 7.499 million (+2.6%), 6.433 million (+5.8%), 7.950 million (+3.2%) and 8.206 million (+4.1%) respectively. Only MTN Syria bucked the trend – not helped by the ‘highly challenging environment’ – recording net disconnections of 364,000, a 6% decrease for a total of 5.665 million.
Finally, MTN Group’s Small OpCo Cluster, which includes operations in Yemen, Afghanistan, Benin, Congo-Brazzaville, Zambia, Guinea, Rwanda, Cyprus, Liberia, Botswana, Guinea-Bissau and Swaziland collectively added a net 650,000 users (+2.3%) for a total of 29.239 million.
