MTN, the telecommunications group, has announced its intention to inject an additional R35 to R39 billion, equivalent to approximately $1.8 billion into bolstering its data and fintech services offerings throughout Africa for the current year.
This declaration was made alongside the release of its audited financial results for 2023, which occurred on Monday. The company revealed that its active fintech user base had surged to 72.5 million by the conclusion of 2023.
The report states that there was a notable increase in the volume of fintech transactions, rising by approximately one-third to 17.6 billion. Moreover, the value of transactions conducted through the fintech platform soared to $272 billion.
MTN attributed this growth to the implementation of advanced services in payments, bank technology, and remittance solutions.
Acknowledging that the macro-economic conditions in some of its operating environments, especially, forex volatility in Nigeria, will continue to be a challenge this year, MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita, said:
“We are anticipating that the macro conditions in our trading environment will persist in 2024, with naira volatility and elevated inflation the key challenges we will need to navigate.
“MTN plans to invest R35-39 billion in 2024 to position the company to capture the structural demand for data and fintech services across Africa.”
“We maintain our overall medium-term guidance framework, however simplifying our objective for fintech,” Mupita said, adding that MTN was encouraged by the outlook for the fintech business, given the solid growth in advanced services.
“The partnership with Mastercard positions the business well to scale faster and we are excited about the commercial launches of card issuance, acceptance, and remittances across the footprint.”
Justifying the need for further investment in data, MTN Group said it recorded a sustained high demand for data and fintech services in 2023. The Group’s active data subscribers increased by more than 9% to 150 million – half the total subscriber base.
The Group’s active Mobile Money, MoMo users also increased by 5% to 72.5 million, impacted by a strategic shift in focus to wallet customers in Nigeria and base clean-ups in Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa.
As of December 2023, MTN Group’s total subscribers increased to 295 million across its markets.
“In the year to end-December 2023, data traffic on MTN’s networks, excluding joint ventures grew by more than a third, with usage up to an average of more than 6GB per user per month.
“To sustain this growth, as well as network coverage and quality, MTN deployed capital expenditure, excluding leases of R41 billion in the year,” the company stated.
