Telecommunications group MTN Ghana has reported an increase in subscribers, service revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) for the first quarter of 2022 despite a tough start to the year.
Ebitda increased by 46.6% to GHS1 403-million, with a 4.9 percentage points increase in the Ebitda margin to 59.5%, while profit after tax expanded 53.7% to GHS707.5-million during the first quarter under review.
“The Ghanaian economy experienced a tough 2022 first quarter with regards to both the fiscal and monetary environments suffering major internal shocks with high depreciation of the local currency against the US dollar and other major trading currencies, double digit inflation and increased pressure on the spending power of consumers,” the company said in an update to shareholders.
“The uncertainty and volatility in our macro and business operating environment has been exacerbated by global trends such as the ramifications of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.”
During the three months ended March 31, the operation, which increased its mobile subscriber base by 8.4% to 27.1-million, recorded a 34.5% jump in service revenue to GHS2 349-million, driven by growth in voice, data and mobile money (MoMo).
Voice revenue grew by 16.9% to GHS785-million, with the contribution of voice to service revenue declining from 38.5% to 33.4%.
The group’s active data subscribers grew 14.4% to 12.8-million, driving a 64.4% growth in data revenue to GHS872-million, with an increased contribution of data to service revenue from 30.4% to 37.1%.
This was further bolstered by a 5.8% growth in the number of smartphones on the network 51.3% rise in data traffic and 32.3% increase in megabytes consumed per active subscriber.
The number of active MoMo users increased 7.7% to 11.7-million and MoMo revenue grew by 26.7% to GHS515-million. The contribution of Mobile Money to service revenue decreased from 23.3% to 21.9%.
Further, impacted by recent initiatives to enhance customer experience and rationalisation of its digital products portfolio, digital revenue declined by 11.9% to GHS42-million. The contribution of digital to service revenue decreased from 2.7% to 1.8%.
MTN Ghana sustained investments of GHS277-million in capital expenditure to support improvements in service quality and the expansion of network capacity and coverage.
During the first quarter of the year, MTN Ghana deployed 62 second-generation, 59 third-generation and 352 fourth-generation (4G) sites and modernised 301 4G sites which supported the increase in 4G coverage by 1.2 percentage points to 91.8%.