MTN recorded a 20% increase in service revenue across all its markets in the first quarter of 2026, but its performance in South Africa remained flat.
In a Q1 2026 trading update on Tuesday, the company explained that one of the major growth drivers was mobile data revenue increasing by 36.1%.
While the MTN Group’s overall subscriber base increased by 5.4% to 312.7 million, the number of active data users grew by 8.7% to 175.6 million.
That helped propel data traffic across its network to 7,826 petabytes, a 20.2% increase over the same period in 2025.
Fintech revenues increased by 22.4%, driven by 15.8 higher transaction volumes and values increasing by 32.8% to $163 billion (R2.69 trillion). MTN MoMo’s monthly active users increased to 67.4 million.
Voice revenue was “resilient”, expanding by 1.3%, which MTN said was supported by subscriber growth and customer value management initiatives in key markets.
Group Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, and Amortisation increased by 27.9%, outpacing revenue growth.
MTN said this was due to its continued focus on expense efficiencies, resulting in a widening of the Group EBITDA margin by three percentage points to 47.6%.
MTN’s capital expenditure for the quarter was R9.6 billion, while the capex intensity of 16.4% was in line with prior period levels.
Breaking down performance at a country-level showed a stark difference between growth at MTN South Africa and in MTN’s other major markets.
In Nigeria, MTN’s service revenue increased by 41.7%, while MTN Ghana’s service revenue grew 35.7%. MTN Cameroon and MTN Côte d’Ivoire increased service revenues by 14.4% and 18.3%, respectively.
MTN said a more supportive macroeconomic and foreign exchange backdrop in Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda supported accelerated investment to meet robust demand and capture future opportunities.
“While the average exchange rates of the currencies of most of our markets were weaker against the rand, the average naira was stronger over the period,” MTN said.
MTN South Africa’s service revenue grew by a marginal 0.7%, which the company blamed on competitive pressure in the prepaid market.
MTN monitoring the Middle East conflict
MTN Group chief executive officer Ralph Mupita said the operator remained constructive on improvements in its broader portfolio with a focus on sustaining turnarounds and positive momentum.
“With the start of execution of our Ambition 2030, we remain confident of the structural demand for data and fintech services that underpins our investment case,” Mupita said.
“We continue to drive strong performances in MTN Nigeria and MTN Ghana while focusing on delivering improvements in MTN SA and particularly its prepaid business.”
Mupita also highlighted progress in the structural separation of MTN’s Fintech businesses in several markets, including:
“MTN Ghana is the first market to announce the completed structural separation of its fintech business, on 30 March 2026,” Mupita said. MTN Nigeria has obtained various governance approvals.
“At the MTN Nigeria Annual General Meeting on 30 April 2026, shareholders voted in favour of the structural separation of MoMo Payment Services Bank and Y’ello Digital Financial Services,” he said.
Mupita said that MTN awaited further progress on the fintech separation in Uganda, with regulatory approvals outstanding.
Mupita said that MTN’s proposed acquisition of IHS would position the platform to unlock additional value from its tower portfolio and strengthen MTN’s digital infrastructure position in Africa.
Mupita said MTN was monitoring the conflict in the Middle East and its impact on oil prices and availability, food prices and broader inflation, as well as foreign exchange rates for local markets.
“The potential impacts could continue well beyond any potential end of hostilities,” Mupita said. “Increased supply chain and currency volatility have elevated macroeconomic and execution risks.”
“We remain confident in our ability to deliver against our strategy, underpinned by our disciplined capital allocation, cost control and robust risk management processes.”
Mupita said to safeguard the health and flexibility of the Group’s financial profile, MTN would be guided by its capital allocation framework and expense efficiency programme.
“While we continue to monitor the macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, we have maintained our medium-term earnings guidance,” he said.
