MTN Group's chief executive officer (CEO) Sifiso Dabengwa. (www.africatelecomit.com)
HumanIPO reported last month on the giant African operator’s first quarter results, which saw it increase its global footprint by 3.2 per cent.
In his annual address to shareholders today, Dabengwa chose to highlight the operator’s continued success in Nigeria.
Dabengwa said: “The main focus for the Nigerian operation is to improve network quality and capacity to enhance competitiveness and cater for higher usage.
“We have made good progress on our capital expenditure rollout programme and continue our constructive dialogue with the regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission, regarding its recent determination that MTN Nigeria is a dominant operator in that country.”
Concerning its less impressive first quarter results in South Africa, where MTN lost 1.9 per cent of its subscribers, Dabengwa said: “MTN South Africa's performance was impacted by weaker consumer demand and increased competition, however the operation maintained its relative revenue share in the first four months of the year.”
Dabengwa also picked out Iran, Ghana, Sudan and Uganda as specific success stories and said data and SMS revenue continued to “expand strongly in most markets”, contributing 18 per cent of overall group revenue.
He finished by saying he expected MTN to sign up its 200 millionth active subscriber by the middle of this year.
In MTN’s first quarter results, they reported 195.4 million subscribers.
