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Johannesburg - Network service provider MTN Group [JSE:MTN] on Tuesday announced a drop of 13.4% and 14.0% respectively in total revenue and group service revenue in its quarterly results to end-September 2017.
Despite this, the company’s group total revenue increased by 6.9% on a constant currency basis, with group service revenue up 7.4%.
The network also reported a 0.7% quarter-on-quarter subscriber decline to 230.2 million, largely driven by lower reported subscribers in Nigeria and due to the disconnection of approximately 750 000 subscribers in Uganda as a result of regulatory SIM registration requirements.
However, the company saw a 31.4% increase in data revenue and a digital revenue rise of 19.6%, while MTN South Africa's organic service revenue increased by 5.2%.
The company’s year-to-date capex was reported at R18bn, up 1.1%.
MTN Group president and chief executive officer Rob Shuter said the key growth drivers of data and digital services performed well.
“In the quarter we have accelerated our network investment programme, rolling out 1 641 3G and 2 102 4G sites (including co-located sites), supporting the demand for data services.
“In line with our strategic initiative to drive a dual-data strategy, we are working on reducing the out-of-bundle data pricing across our markets to stimulate usage from inactive and low usage customers.
“This is expected to have a short-term impact on data revenue growth but we anticipate elasticity in the mass and high-value segments will continue to drive data revenue growth in the medium term,” Shuter added.
MTN Nigeria reported an 11.2% increase in total revenue supported by data revenue growth of 72.1%, and MTN Irancell’s total revenue increased by 16.8%.
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