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Investing.com -- MTN Group (JO:MTNJ) reported a 10.4% rise in service revenue for the first quarter, lifted by strong performances in Nigeria and Ghana, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization also increasing on higher data and financial technology usage.
Service revenue rose to R47.4 billion in the three months ended March 31, compared with R42.9 billion a year earlier, the company said Monday.
In constant currency terms, revenue grew 19.8%, driven by a 40.4% increase in Nigeria and 39.5% in Ghana. South Africa posted a 2.6% gain, while Uganda rose 13.5%.
Group EBITDA increased 23.1% year-over-year to R21.5 billion, or 33.0% in constant currency.
The EBITDA margin improved to 43.6%, up from 38.3%. Nigeria led with a 49.2% rise in EBITDA, followed by Ghana at 22.7% and Uganda at 18.3%. South Africa’s EBITDA declined by 2.4%.
Data revenue increased 17.9%, or 28.7% in constant currency, supported by a 9.1% rise in active data users to 161.7 million.
Data traffic rose 30.4% to 5,677 petabytes. Voice revenue was broadly flat, down 0.1% in reported terms, but up 9.8% in constant currency.
Fintech revenue rose 17.2%, or 25.2% in constant currency, with transaction volume up 13.9% to 5.5 billion and transaction value up 48.9% to $95.3 billion. Monthly active users for Mobile Money rose 1.1% to 62.2 million.
Capital expenditure increased to R12.0 billion from R9.0 billion a year earlier. Excluding leases, capex was R7.5 billion. Capex intensity, which excludes leases, rose to 15.2% from 11.8%.
The total subscriber base grew 4.7% year-over-year to 296.8 million. MTN’s net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio stood at 0.7x, with holding company leverage at 1.5x. Liquidity headroom was R38.0 billion.