MTN Ghana reported a strong performance for the year. Service revenue increased by 23.0%, driven by the strong growth in voice, data and digital revenue. Data revenue increased by 30.2% year on year (YoY) while digital revenue grew by 34.6%. This was driven by a 92.0% increase in data traffic to 137 850TB. MTN Mobile Money supported digital revenue growth and increased its contribution to total revenue to 17.7%. Voice revenue increased by 15.1% YoY and contributed 46.0% to total revenue.
The reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin declined YoY by 2.2 percentage points to 37.6%, following the introduction of the management fee agreement effective 1 May 2018.
Adjusting for management fees, the EBITDA margin would have been higher by 3.1 percentage points to 40.7%.
The business executed well on its capex plans in the year, supporting the improvement in coverage expansion, customer experience and QoS significantly, leading to subscriber growth. During the period, 600 2G sites, 1,100 3G sites and 250 4G sites were rolled out.
The improved network coupled with aggressive sales and product offers drove the improved subscriber growth. Subscribers increased by 12.7% YoY to 20.1 million (13.6% YoY to 17.8 million*). The number of active data subscribers in the same period was 6.4 million#.
MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) continued its positive momentum, adding 17.8% more active MoMo subscribers from December 2017 to 8.4 million*, supported by consistent service delivery across all channels.
MTN Ghana listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) on 5 September 2018 with the largest number of Ghanaian shareholding at 127,826. At the end of December 2018, MTN Ghana’s market capitalisation was GH¢9.7 billion, making it the third largest primary listed company on the GSE.
2019 is the year of the customer: MTN Ghana has declared 2019 as the year of the customer in line with the BRIGHT strategy; with prime focus on customer experience as a tool to create value for shareholders. # Active data subscribers as per MTN Group definition.
# Active data subscribers as per MTN Group definition.
* Aligned with the MTN Group definition, subscribers are SIMs which generate or participate in an event that generates revenue for the company. Out of bracket numbers conform to the respective regulator subscriber definition.
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