MTN Group saw a ZAR9 billion (US$506 million) loss and blamed the ongoing battle against currency devaluation in Nigeria and grappling with the civil war in Sudan.
MTN stated for the six months ending June 30, group service revenue dropped 20.8% to ZAR85.3 billion.
Speaking on a call to group CEO Ralph Mupita said the operator continued to see units affected by “continued devaluation against the US dollar” particularly the Nigerian naira, and other factors “impacting us in the period, including the ongoing civil war in Sudan”.
The Nigerian central bank devalued the naira compared to the dollar twice in the last year as is dollar stockpile dwindled. This was a move to stabilise the economy and gain new investments.
Mupita noted in Sudan that the conflict “severely affected network availability and revenue generation in that market” and added the cable cuts that “caused major disruption in and outages” across West Africa also hit its numbers.
Total number of subscribers grew by 3 million to 288 million and the number of active subscribers grew 9.2% to 150.2 million. Mupita noted growth here was impacted by SIM registration regulation in Ghana and Nigeria, and a decline in Sudan amidst the ongoing conflict.
However, demand for services grew as aata traffic increased by 35.7% to 9,045 petabytes. The number of active mobile money subscribers grew by 9.1% to 66 million and fintech transactions increased by 18% to 9.7 billion.
Mupita said going forward the operator will continue with its five point strategy to return Nigeria into a profitable unit, which includes gaining permission to raise tariff prices, an ongoing process noted the chief executive.
Recently, the group concluded the sale of its Guinea-Bissau unit as part of restructuring plans.
