MTN Uganda’s mobile subscribers increased by almost 12%, boosted by financial technology and data services for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, the telecom operator said yesterday.
Its mobile subscribers increased by 11.6% to 17.8 million.
MTN Uganda CEO Sylvia Mulinge said: “MTN Uganda recorded a good start to the year with a solid Q1 (quarter one) performance, tracking positively against our medium-term targets with a solid revenue performance and margin expansion.
“This was delivered through disciplined execution of our strategy and incremental improvements in the trading environment with a relatively stable currency coupled with subsiding albeit high inflation.”
Profit after tax grew 20% to 120.6 billion Ugandan shillings (about R600 million) in the reported period.
MTN Uganda flagged that active data subscribers grew by 25% to 6.7 million, while active fintech subscribers increased by 14% to 10.9 million.
Service revenue grew by 15.8% to Ush 621.1bn, supported by a strong recovery in its voice revenues and double-digit growth in its data and fintech revenues. This as data revenue grew by 25.7% to Ush 145.3bn, driven by a 25% growth in active data users and 11.6% growth in its MB per active data user.
Fintech revenue grew by 20.7% to Ush 174.8bn, attributed to the robust performance of its payments service and recovery in the savings and lending portfolio anchored by strong growth in basic revenues.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) rose 17.3% to Ush 326.4bn.
Mulinge also said the group was investing in its network in preparation for 5G to address its customers’ requirements and support sustained growth.
In line with its 5G transition, MTN Uganda launched a partnership with Huawei Technologies to align its infrastructure towards a cloud native 5G Capable Core network.
MTN Uganda reported that voice revenue improved by 8.8%, largely supported by strong growth of 11.6% in its subscriber base.
“Our customer net additions in the quarter were 600k attributable to improvements in our service offering and affordability,” it said.
Its digital portfolio revenues grew strongly by 170.5% to Ush 2.7bn supported by robust growth in its video streaming (YoTV) and its content value-added services portfolio.
“This was further supported by strong digital subscriber growth, particularly on the Ayoba super app, closing with 1.2 million customers,” it said.
Looking ahead, the group said the central bank forecast the Ugandan economy to continue its steady recovery aided by lower anticipated general inflation.
“While encouraged by the positive trends in the macroeconomic environment, we do remain alert to the upside risk to inflation associated with food prices, despite favourable rainy seasons, tighter global financial conditions which could impact the shilling and higher oil prices.
“These factors may continue to impact our performance going forward. However, we have built the resilience into our business to continue to navigate the volatility and sustain medium-term growth,” it said.
BUSINESS REPORT