Late previous year, MTN Nigeria was fined N780-bbillion (equivalent to approximately $3,9-billion using the exchange rate at the time) because of the late disconnection of approximately 5,1-million subscribers whose registration documents were considered incomplete. On 24 February 2016, MTN Nigeria made a without prejudice good faith payment of N50-billion (equivalent to approximately $250-million) to the Federal Government of Nigeria, on the basis that this will be applied towards a settlement, when one is eventually hopefully arrived at.
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The company raised its annual dividend by 5.2 per cent to 1,310 cents per share.
Vehicles stop at a traffic junction by an MTN billboard in central business district Abuja, Nigeria November 17, 2015.
Africa’s biggest mobile network, the MTN Group, has recorded a 51% drop in full year profits.
MTN Group’s consolidated revenue inched up 0.1% year-on-year to ZAR147.
“Notwithstanding the challenging operating environment, MTN continued to benefit from its significant scale and footprint”, MTN said.
Still, the company said Thursday that it had disconnected an additional 4.5 million subscribers in Nigeria at the end of February, following a process initiated with the NCC in the last quarter of 2015. This includes the impairment for handsets in South Africa (ZAR 592 million) and the interconnect debt provision in Nigeria (ZAR 503 million).
MTN operates across 22 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
He said he would also travel to China and South Korea within two weeks in a bid to encourage foreign firms to invest in broadband service in the West African nation. Still, exclusive of the fine, over the past three years MTN has come up against the local competition regulator, which in 2013 cracked down on the company for being a “dominant actor”, capping its market share.
The 2015 financial results indicate a 55.8% revenue increase for MTN Uganda from MTN Mobile Money product.
Without counting the fine, earnings were down 14 percent, chief executive Phuthuma Nhleko said.
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The Corporate Executive, MTN Nigeria, Amina Oyagbola, said, “MTN’s auditors have required that the company make a provision in line with the International Financial Reporting Standards”. 64 billion in 2015, compared with net debt of ZAR4.
