MTN Group, Africa’s largest telco, said that its fintech unit grew by 22%, even as MoMo user growth remained flat.
On Monday, MTN Group shared that its service revenue grew for the first half of the year to $5.6 billion from $4.8 billion in the same period in 2022 in constant currency. This represents a 15.2% increase for the telco, which is present in 16 African countries. Multinational companies like MTN use constant currency exchange rates to eliminate the effect of fluctuations when calculating financial performance numbers for publication in financial statements.
According to MTN, this growth came from a 24% increase in revenue from data services, 22% from fintech services, and a 6% increase from voice services. The group’s pretax profit shrank from $979 million to $964 million. The group’s EBITDA margin also reduced from 44% to 43.6%. The group said this was because of inflation and foreign exchange depreciation, which placed upward pressure on costs.
The number of subscribers increased by 3.6% year-on-year to 291 million. The group said its growth was impacted by the conflict in Sudan. Active data subscribers grew by 7.4% to 139 million, with MoMo customers remaining stable at 60 million. The group said Nigeria’s cash scarcity and a focus on active wallets and base clean-up in Cote d’Ivoire were to blame for MoMo’s flat growth rate, even as active agents grew by 18% to 1.3 million.
In line with policy, no interim dividend was declared for H1, but the minimum final dividend for the end of the year will be $0.17. The group also said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Mastercard for the payment company to buy a minority stake in its fintech business, which it values at $5.2 billion.
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