MTN Uganda says dry weather, inflation and currency concerns are headwinds that the mobile operator continues to grapple with as it reported interim mobile data revenue growth of more than a third on Thursday.
MTN Uganda’s outgoing CEO, Wim Vanhelleputte, said the half-year to end-June was characterised by increased inflationary and currency pressures.
“This has largely been influenced by higher fuel prices, rising domestic food crop prices due to dry weather conditions across the country, as well as persistent global production and supply chain challenges. The combination of these factors has had a significant impact on the spending power of our customers in the period under review.”
Vanhelleputte is set to take up the role of operating executive for West and Central Africa at MTN from October, looking after the markets of Liberia, Guinea-Conakry, Guinea-Bissau, and Congo Brazzaville.
Sylvia Mulinge, a 16-year Safaricom veteran, is set to take the reins at MTN Uganda upon Vanhelleputte’s departure.
Having listed on the Uganda Stock Exchange in December 2021, this is the company’s first public interim earnings report.
The company reported that service revenue rose 10.0% to 1.087-trillion Uganda shillings, about R4.6bn, with after-tax profit increasing 48.1% to 193.6-billion shillings. Data revenue grew 36.8% to 237.6-billion shillings.
Active data subscribers rose 21.8% to 5.7-million, lifting earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (ebitda) 7.2% to 548.7-billion shillings.
Overall, subscribers rose 8.9% to 16.3-million for the period, while active fintech subscribers increased 14.1% to 9.8-million.
Capital expenditure, excluding right of use assets, rose 30.7% to 201.7-billion shillings, with an increase in 4G coverage to two-thirds of the population at the end of the half.
The Uganda unit declared an interim dividend of 5.0 shillings per share.
Earlier in the week, parent company MTN Group flagged a profit rise of as much as 50% for its half-year to end-June. This led the company’s share price to rise as much as 4.3% on the day, signalling satisfaction from market players about the operator’s interim prospects.
Headline earnings per share (Heps) are expected to increase 40%-50% from the previous period’s R3.87, Africa’s largest mobile operator said in a brief update.
The group is in talks to buy SA’s largest fibre operator, Telkom, in a deal that could be for more than R30bn.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.