Rise in MTN Nigeria Mobile Subscribers Buoys Q3 Earnings

Top telecommunication service provider, MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, has released its year-on-year nine months interim financial statements ended September 30, 2019 with result indicating there were rise in both profit and revenue in the period so far.

The company recorded a revenue of N856.5 billion compared with N764.5 billion recorded as at September 2018, meaning that the company’s profit within a period of 12 months by over 10 percent or N92 billion.

The profit for the year also went up by N33.3 billion in the period under analysis to N148.3 billion against NN115.0 billion it was during the same period of 2018.

The telecommunication company attributed this growth to the increase in mobile subscribers by 0.1 million (100,000) to 61.6 million users and complemented by active Internet data users which rose by 1.6 million to 22.3 million subscribers this year.

The company made N72.5 million from other income sources in the first nine months of 2019 while as at September 2018, the figure stood at N69.8 million.

MTN Nigeria was able to reduce its direct network operating cost this year to N117.9 billion against N227.3 billion that was expended during the same period last year. Following suit, value added services cost also dropped this period to N8.9 billion from N14.2 billion as at September 2018.

The company also saw reductions in its roaming and transmission costs, which went down to N2.9 billion and N4.1 billion from N3.4 billion and N4.2 billion respectively.

Employee benefits and sales promotion means (advertisements, sponsorships) both saw increases as the company spent a total of N23.1 billion on the former from N19.1 last year September while the latter went up to N13.6 billion as against N12.3 billion in the same period, 2018.

The company’s operating profit culminated into N286.3 billion as at September, a difference of N80.5 billion compared to N205.8 billion last year. This brought about a Profit Before Tax (PBT) of N212 billion despite recording a higher finance cost (equal to N92 billion) and lower finance income (N17.7 billion) compared to N171 billion recorded before tax despite its relative lower finance cost (N53.2 billion) and higher finance income (N18.4 billion)

MTN Nigeria paid a total of N63.7 billion in taxes as at September 2019 compared to N56 billion at the period under review in 2018.

The company which listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange earlier this year also disclosed that its earnings per share rose by 29 percent to N7.29k.

It will be recalled that in early September, Business Post reported that the telco suffered a set back in its operations as result of retaliatory xenophobic attacks on the company’s facilities across the country.