MTN SA Subscribers Grow as Nigeria Declines

MTN South Africa increased its subscriber numbers by 2% in the third quarter of the year, while the Nigerian market declined, according to ITweb

The telco's quarterly update shows overall subscriber growth of 0.9% quarter-on-quarter for the group, while registered Mobile Money subscribers grew almost 13% to 36.5 million across 14 operations.

"The group's third quarter results reflect continued progress made in the South African operation strengthening its market position and significant improvements in network quality following corrective measures taken in MTN Nigeria," according to MTN Group president and CEO, Sifiso Dabengwa.

ITweb reported that MTN South Africa's subscriber base now stands at 29.1 million, after prepaid subscriber numbers grew by 3.1%. The postpaid subscriber base, however, was not as healthy, with numbers declining by 2.6% to 5.2 million. This was blamed on the "disconnections of approximately 90 000 low-cost router SIMs recorded on the Autopage subscriber base and low availability of handsets".

"While supply chain issues have been largely resolved, the operation continued to experience limited availability of handsets during the quarter as a result of delayed deliveries," according to MTN.

Dabengwa says Mobile Money and digital content revenue continued to gain healthy traction for the telco and continued to increase their contribution to revenue.

"However, aggressive price competition, weakening macro-economic conditions in most of our markets, and unfavourable exchange rate movements continued to impact financial performance for the quarter," adds Dabengwa.