Telecommunications group MTN Nigeria has reported strong growth during the year ended December 31, 2021.

Driven by the strong operational performance, MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola said the company delivered growth across all revenue lines, which demonstrated the underlying strength and momentum of the business.

During the year ended December 31, 2021, the group’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) increased 27.9% to N877.07-billion, while the Ebitda margin expanded by 2.1 percentage points to 53%.

This growth was attributed to solid revenue growth on the back of accelerated investments in the network, supported by cost management initiatives through our expense efficiency programme, which, overall, translated into an increase of 46.1% in profit before tax to N436.69-billion and 45.5% in profit after tax to N298.65-billion.

Earnings per share rose by 45.5% to N14.67 kobo during the year under review.

Despite a 10.6% decline in MTN Nigeria’s subscriber base to 68.5-million, service revenue climbed 23.3% to N1.65-trillion, exceeding the mid-teen targets, driven mainly by growth in voice, data and fintech service revenue lines.

“Operationally, our mobile subscriber base declined by 10.6% and was impacted by the regulatory restrictions on new Sim sales and activations. However, we are pleased to have returned to positive growth in the fourth quarter of 2021, adding about one-million subscribers as we continued to ramp up the alignment of our Sim registration and activation centres with the regulations," he said.

Data revenue rose by 55.3% to N516.15-billion, with the average megabyte a user increasing 62.7%, enabling overall data traffic growth of 85.3%, while voice revenue grew by 8.4% to N971.45-billion owing to higher use in the company’s active SIM base, resulting in a 7.9% growth in minutes of use.

Active fintech subscribers increased 4.8-million to 94-million, with fintech revenue increasing 57.3% to N70.55-billion, while digital revenue rose 61.2% to N18.04-billion as the active user base grew and penetration of MTN’s digital products deepened. The active user base rose by 162.1% to 7.5-million, led by Ayoba with about 3.8-million active users, up 172.9%.

The sustained increase in the demand for data, which extended beyond the use spikes seen during Covid-19 lockdowns, accelerated MTN Nigeria’s capital expenditure (capex).

“As a result, capex in the period was up by 36.7% to N408.3-billion, as we ramped up investment in our network to capture growth through service quality leadership and aggressive coverage expansion, focusing on the fourth-generation (4G) network,” explained Toriola.

MTN Nigeria deployed 9 336 4G sites representing about 75% of the total sites deployed during the year under review.

MTN Nigeria declared a final dividend of N8.57 kobo a share, bringing the total dividend for the year to N13.12 kobo a share, representing an increase of 39.6%.

“In line with the accelerated growth we are seeing, we expect service revenue growth of at least 20% over the medium term. In delivering on the service revenue growth guidance, we will continue to focus on capex efficiencies, margin expansion, operating cashflow growth and improving returns to shareholders,” Toriola concluded.