MTN Mobile Money Transaction Volume Rises by 280.8% in One Year

The growing consumer awareness towards numerous advantages of mobile money and its adoption has continued to expand its market size in Nigeria MTN.

As expected, the leading telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria in its newly released audited results for the half-year ended 30 June 2021 has reported that its mobile money transaction volume increased by 280.8% Year-on-Year (YoY) to 55.6 million.

The Telco noted its mobile money arm active subscriber base is now more than 6.1 million, up 180.0% YoY.

According to the report made available to Business Remarks, MTN Nigeria Mobile Money (MoMo) agents increased by 121,000 in H1 2021 to more than 515,000 in H1 2021, as a result, broaden its service coverage.

MTN Nigeria said its fintech revenue rose by 48.2%, which is largely driven by increased adoption of Xtratime and our core fintech services.

Furthermore, it stated that the company’s digital business continued to gain traction on the back of its strong partner ecosystem and the uptake of its products and services.

“Digital revenue rose by 61.8%, also supported by our rich media and value-added services. Our active user base rose by 38.0% to over 3.9 million, led by Ayoba – our instant messaging platform – with more than 2.3 million active users.

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“The enterprise business revenue increased by 6.0%, demonstrating the continued recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown and the uptake of our services by the businesses we serve. We have made significant progress in concluding the operational modalities for the new pricing framework for USSD services, which incorporates the recovery of outstanding USSD debts.

“We continue to pursue and realise efficiency through cost discipline and enhanced digitisation. However, due to an accelerated site rollout, the effects of Naira depreciation on lease rental costs and Covid-19 related expenditure, operating expenses increased by 24.6%. Our continued ability to drive operating leverage helped to drive EBITDA growth to 27.6%, with a 1.4pp expansion in our EBITDA margin to 52.7%.

“Capital expenditure in the period was 39.1% higher to N186.4 billion, as we continued to invest in our network to maintain service quality and aggressively expand our footprint in terms of 4G and rural coverage. We recorded a healthy free cash flow of N230.8 billion, up by 19.6%. Despite a 50.6% increase in core CAPEX excluding the right of use assets to N114.5 billion, CAPEX intensity remained within target levels at 14.5%. Depreciation and amortisation rose by 17.1% and net finance cost was down by 9.8%, resulting from a lower average cost of borrowings. Overall, we recorded a PBT growth of 54.1%, also reflecting the softer base of H1 2020”, MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola commented on the results.

For the first half of the year, ended June 30, 2021, MTN service revenue hit N790.3 billion, an increase of 24.1 per cent.

Its profit before tax (PBT) of N215.1 billion and profit after tax (PAT) of N141.8 billion in its half-year (H1) operations. The financial report showed pre-tax profit growth of N215 billion, representing a 54.1 per cent increase, while profit for the period soared by 49.5 per cent to N141.827 billion.

MTN, which disclosed this in its unaudited results for the half-year 2021, said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 27.6 per cent to N417.2 billion, while the EBITDA margin improved by 1.4 percentage points to 52.7 per cent.

The firm, at the weekend, said its capital expenditure was up by 39.1 per cent to N186.4 billion (up 50.6 per cent to N114.5 billion excluding the right of use [RoU] assets). It posted a dividend per share of N4.55 kobo, which grew by 30 per cent.

Karl Toriola also stressed that in the first half of 2021, the firm made good progress in strengthening the resilience of the business, managing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and enhancing support to people, customers and other stakeholders.