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Investing.com -- MTN Group (JO:MTNJ) on Monday reported a profit for the first half of 2025 as service revenue growth in Nigeria and Ghana offset prior-year losses.
Headline earnings per share rose to 645 cents from a 256 cents loss a year earlier, while basic earnings per share recovered to 539 cents from a 409 cents loss.
Group service revenue increased 23.2% to R105.1 billion, with data revenue up 36.5% and fintech revenue up 37.3%.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization rose 60.6% to R46.7 billion, lifting the EBITDA margin to 42.7% from 32%.
Operating free cash flow climbed 106.4% to R20.5 billion before spectrum and license acquisitions.
Net-debt-to-EBITDA leverage improved to 0.5x from 0.7x at the end of 2024, while holding company leverage was 1.5x compared with 1.4x. Liquidity headroom stood at R39.1 billion, including R15.7 billion in cash.
The Johannesburg-based company invested R20.8 billion in capital expenditure excluding leases, equal to 19% of revenue, reflecting higher network spend in Nigeria and the stronger Ghanaian cedi.
Subscriber numbers rose 4.7% to 297.7 million, with active data users up 10.3% to 164.4 million and Mobile Money monthly active users 1.7% higher at 63.2 million.
Data traffic grew 29.1% to 11.7 petabytes and fintech transactions rose 14.5% to 11.1 billion.
The mobile telecom company raised its medium-term service revenue growth target to “at least high-teens” from “at least mid-teens” and increased planned capital expenditure for 2025 to R33 billion-R38 billion from R30 billion-R35 billion.
"Strong commercial momentum underpinned by improvement in macro conditions. Our performance in H1 2025 was supported by improved macroeconomic conditions, characterised by greater stability in inflation and foreign exchange (forex) rates in key markets," Africa’s largest mobile network operator said in a statement.
"The Nigerian naira exhibited greater stability against the US dollar in the first half, particularly when compared to H2 2024; while the Ghanaian cedi strengthened year-to-date in H1 against both our reporting currency the rand and the US dollar," the company added.