MTN Ghana sees investment in digital and financial services driving growth

MTN Ghana says it would exploit the several opportunities in the digital and financial services space and invest in infrastructure to further accelerate the company’s growth in the future.

Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Mr Selorm Adadevoh told a virtual shareholders meeting on Thursday that the company would continue to stick to the drivers of growth, including data, digital, including rich media services and mobile money, enterprise business and wholesale business to drive profit.

The company will also drive down operational cost while efficiently investing in capital expenditure to optimise network performance.

“We are upbeat about our compelling investment case as we continue to maintain a strong position in our market with strong revenue growth and leadership in core service delivery,” he said.

Currently, MTN Ghana maintains market leadership with 55.2 percent share in the competitive telecommunication industry and seeks to invest about US$130 million this year to expand infrastructure.

In 2019, the business reported a profit after tax of GH¢1.01 billion, representing a 33.6 percent increase over prior year, driven by strong performance in service revenue from Voice, Data and Mobile Money.

There was a double-digit growth in voice revenue up 19.4 per cent, which was driven by an increase in the number of active subscribers, the benefits of various customer value management (CVM) initiatives and pro-consumer activity, as well as continued improvements to the network.

As new lines of revenue continued to grow much faster than the traditional business, voice revenue’s contribution to service revenue decreased from 46.3 percent to 45.0 percent.

Data revenue’s contribution to service revenue expanded from 26.3 percent to 28.4 percent on the back of the introduction of high-speed internet to homes and to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by MTN turbonet, which sold over 50,000 units.

Mobile Money revenue continued to grow strongly up 28.0 percent year-on year, attributable to an increase in the number of active subscribers, increased transactional activity of person-to-person (P2P) transactions as well as good growth in more advanced services, such as retail merchant payments and international remittances.

Mr Adadevoh said to maintain relevance and to keep up with the dynamism of the telecommunications industry, the company would continue to innovate, create and build meaningful relationships that will improve customer experience and brighten lives.

Despite the gains, the CEO said the MTN continued to experience issues impacting on quality of service to customers, including the lingering fibre cut menace and instability of the national power grid to power cell sites.

He said, together with the Ghana Telecommunications Chamber, the company continued to proactively engage all relevant stakeholders and regulatory agencies to support in resolving the challenges that are affecting the entire Industry.

On COVID-19, Mr Adadevoh said the company was exploring multiple scenarios in a bid to mitigate the impact on the business while monitoring developments.

Board Chairman, Mr Ishmael Yamson, said the overall performance generated a return on equity of 36 percent to shareholders.

The Board recommended a final dividend of 4 pesewas per share, bringing the total dividend for the 2019 year to 6 pesewas per share, which was approved by the shareholders.