MTN Ghana has announced its financial performance for the year ended December 31, 2023, indicating very strong growth in key financial and non-financial metrics.
The report general demonstrates the resilience and adaptability of its business amidst challenging market conditions.
MTN’s pushed its market lead further with total mobile voice subscribers reaching 26.8 million, in spite of a significant 6.3% year-on-year decline due to the national SIM re-registration exercise.
Indeed, SIM re-registration exclusively with the Ghana Card rendered millions of SIM cards on all networks invalid. So, this significant decline in subscriber base is expected across all networks.
Since the National Communications Authority (NCA) published that last subscriber figures in January 2023, more than a year ago, they have not published anymore figures to reflect the current state of affairs. Meanwhile, in the last report, MTN Ghana had 26.8 million, which is not different from what it reported for the close of the year.
On active data subscribers side of things, MTN reported a 14% increase to 15.4 million. But per the NCA’s January 2023 report, MTN had about 17.15 million data customer more than a year ago. So, at 15.4 million December 2023, that represents a decline and not an increase.
The company said its active mobile money customers also increased by 20.1% to 15.2 million, driving mobile money revenue growth by 48.8% year on year to GHS2.9 billion. Compared to the rest of the industry, MTN Mobile Money commands almost 90% of the total industry revenue over the period
The telecom giant has been recording a decline in digital revenue for a while now. In 2023, however, the decline slowed with a decrease of 4.7% year on year to GHS137.4 million. Meanwhile, it recorded an increase of 28.6% year on year in the number of
active digital subscribers, reaching a total of 4.6 million.
“Our primary focus is on improving the myMTN application and expanding the music and game offerings on ayoba,” the company said.
Revenue and profits
In general, total revenue grew by 34.6% year on year, reaching GHS13.45 billion by the close of 2023, while service revenue also grew by the same margin and reached GHS13.3 billion.
Profits after tax, on the other hand, grew 39.4% and reached almost GHS4 billion, while EBITDA (Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization) increased by 40.2% to GHS7.8 billion, with EBITDA margin rising by 2.3 percentage points to 58.4%.
In the year 2023, MTN reports investing a significant GHS4.1 billion in capital expenditure (capex) to expand network coverage and enhance service quality, and contributed a whopping GHS5.9 billion to the Ghanaian economy in direct and indirect taxes, representing a 59.5% year-on-year increase.
While acknowledging the anticipated challenges of the macroeconomic environment, MTN Ghana said it remains optimistic about the future, emphasizing its commitment to its Ambition 2025 strategy, focusing on developing its platforms to unlock further value for stakeholders, continuously improving its network and services to deliver an exceptional customer experience and maintaining its medium-term growth guidance of high-twenties (in percentage terms) for service revenue.
Impacting lives through social and economic initiatives
As part of MTN’s vision to create a better future for all Ghanaians, the MTN Ghana Foundation invested GHS30.3 million in 2023 towards improving healthcare, education, and supporting economic growth.
The CEO Selorm Adadevoh said, We are on track to complete the construction of a 60-bed maternity and neonatal centre for the Keta Municipal Hospital and a STEM robotics lab for the Mamfe Girls’ School. We are at the final stage of equipping these projects as we prepare to hand over the projects to the respective authorities for use. We also awarded 120 new scholarships, bringing the total number of students benefiting from the MTN scholarship programme at various educational institutions to 566”.
Selorm said, “Our commitment to socioeconomic development continues to be a priority and we look forward to continuing to play our part in Ghana’s sustainable development”.
MTN Ghana remained a development partner to the Government through our contribution to the fiscal and socio-economic development of the country. In 2023, the Company paid GHS5.9 billion in direct and indirect taxes and GHS0.4 billion in fees, levies, and other payments to Governmental agencies. Combined, this represented 47.1% of MTN’s total revenue for the 2023 financial year.
During the year, MTN Ghana in collaboration with Government, launched the “Ghana Innovation Hub” project which is aligned to our Ambition 2025 strategic objective of leading the delivery of digital solutions for Ghana’s progress. The ICT Hub project along with the “Accra Innovation City” and “The Ghana Education Platform” projects are spearheaded by MTN Ghana in partnership with the Government and other partners. So far, MTN Ghana has made a commitment of US$25 million towards the ICT Hub project. These initiatives aim to accelerate Ghana’s ICT ecosystem, develop human capital and ICT skills, and create job opportunities for the youth.
MTN Ghana’s strong financial performance in 2023 demonstrates its commitment to delivering value to its customers, contributing to the Ghanaian economy, and creating a brighter future for all.