MTN raises customer base YoY
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
MTN’s customer base increased by one million in 2021 and the telecom carrier made N70 billion from Value Added Services (VAS) to consolidate its leadership of the sector it has dominated since it became Nigeria’s first network in 2001.
VAS include airtime lending and mobile money (fintech), subscriber identification module (SIM) backup services, and voice based services.
Active fintech subscribers rose 95.83 per cent from 4.8 million in 2020 to 9.4 million in 2021 and VAS revenue grew 51.91 per cent from N46 billion, according to the financial report of MTN.
Despite decline in mobile subscription – caused by regulatory restrictions on new SIM sales and activations in Q1 through Q3 2021 – MTN returned to positive growth in Q4 as mobile subscribers increased by one million.
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Impact of regulatory restrictions
“Operationally, our mobile subscriber base declined by 10.6 per cent and was impacted by the regulatory restrictions on new SIM sales and activations,” explained
Karl Toriola, MTN Nigeria Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
“However, we are pleased to have returned to positive growth in Q4 2021, adding approximately one million subscribers as we continued to ramp up the alignment of our SIM registration and activation centres with the regulations.
“Our fintech business continued to gain traction with approximately 770k registered mobile money (MoMo) agents and active users more than doubling to 9.4 million.
“This provides a solid foundation on which to launch the MoMo Payment Service Bank (PSB), for which we have received an Approval in Principle. The MoMo PSB will provide a powerful platform to drive digital and financial inclusion in Nigeria.”
Revenue appreciation
MTN recorded 22.90 per cent growth in revenue in 2021 FY Audited Financial Statement, per Nairametrics.
Revenue appreciated from N1.35 trillion in 2020 to N1.65 trillion, net profit by 45.5 per cent to N298.65 billion from N205.21 billion.
MTN generates the bulk of its revenue from voice calls and data subscriptions but in 2021 its customers spent more on data subscriptions, increasing that revenue line 55.31 per cent. Voice call revenue grew 6.96 per cent.
