MTN Group reported 56.8 per cent growth in profit before tax for the financial year ended December 2018 and confirmed its plans to list on the Nigerian Stock Exchange latest June this year.
The listing, according to the telecoms company, will be by introduction and is subject to regulatory approval. It reported a profit before tax of R15.0bn in the 2018 financial year as against R9.57bn in 2017.
The company revealed that the growth in earnings in Nigeria did not include the $53m (R744m) payment to the Central Bank of Nigeria, and was mainly driven by double-digit growth in services, data and fintech revenue. The telecoms company said the $53m payment to Nigerian authorities was paid on January 4, 2019, saying it was one of the one-off costs that negatively impacted its headline earnings per share.
In Nigeria, the company recorded 17.2 per cent growth in service revenue, 39.3 per cent improvement in data revenue, 18.7 per cent growth in voice revenue and 32.7 per cent growth in fintech revenue, which includes airtime lending and e-commerce. However, the digital revenue of the company suffered a decline of 58.5 per cent in 2018, which was attributed to further optimisation of value-added services, but the company expressed optimism that there would be digital revenue growth this year.
