MTN has reached a new milestone becoming the first mobile operator in Africa to surpass 300-million customers.
The company said it was “delighted to announce that we had reached our Ambition 2025 strategic target of serving 300-million customers”.
MTN began its life in 1994 with the launch of its commercial operations, after the acquisition of one of the country’s two cellular telephony service licences.
When the company was first formed, it was established with a large stake held by the M-Net-Naspers group. For a short time, the holding company, M-Cell, was essentially the parent entity for both MTN and the pay TV unit that would become MultiChoice.
Together with rival Vodacom, the SA operators are credited with spreading and popularising the prepaid business model for mobile, starting in 1996. This helped to open up mobile access to customers without bank accounts or contracts.
Expansion across Africa
In 1997-98, MTN began its foray beyond SA’s borders with the establishment of MTN International, securing licences in countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, and Swaziland.
As the decade closed, MTN had reached the 2-million subscriber mark in SA. The company now has more than 39-million customers in the country.
In August 2001, the group began operating in Nigeria. The West African country has grown to become its largest and most lucrative operation, typically accounting for a third of earnings and home to 85-million subscribers at the end of second quarter to June 2025.
Three decades after its formation, the group has a commanding lead where customers are concerned, even after hiving off five businesses in recent years. Vodacom, its closest competitor on this metric, sits at more than 200-million customers with a goal to reach 260-million by 2030.
Airtel Africa has 166.1-million customers while Orange puts its Middle East and Africa base at 166.7-million by mid-2025.
Global ambitions
Globally, MTN will be looking to surpass companies such as Vodacom’s parent, Vodafone, Mexico’s América Móvil and France’s Orange before taking on the behemoths in India and China.
China Mobile is considered the world’s largest mobile provider with more than more than 1-billion customers.
During an event this week, MTN CEO Ralph Mupita said: “Tonight, we celebrate our Y’ello Care employee volunteers and take inspiration from their can-do attitude. We also celebrate their dedication, which has led to the group meeting a strategic milestone by serving more than 300-million customers a mere three decades since the start of our first commercial operation in SA.”
MTN, which had developed a reputation for conquering emerging-market countries that few dared touch, has also been exiting its businesses in the Middle East — including Syria, Yemen and Iran — as part of its five-year, slim-down plan, Ambition 2025, unveiled in 2019 to reduce risk, sell noncore assets such as towers and masts, and raise about R25bn.
The Yemeni and Syrian businesses were sold in 2021. Only Iran remains in the group’s Middle East portfolio after it sold its Afghanistan shareholding to Investcom, an affiliate company of Singapore telecom company M1, in February 2024.
In the same year, the group sold off its businesses in Guinea-Conakry and Guinea-Bissau.
MTNs share price closed up 1.9% at R165.83 on Friday, taking its year-to-date gains to 79%.
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