MTN'S Revenue Revealed As Nigeria Remains The Driver Of It's Growth

MTN telecoms giant from South Africa revealed on March 5, 2014, Wednesday that its revenues grew by 12% in the year 2013, driven by increasing subscribers and helped by a weak rand. Its revenues reached 136.50 billion rand ($12.71 billion) for the year and total subscribers were up 9.8 % (207.8 million). The main contributorof this increase wasthe most populated country in Africa, Nigeria, which displayed 20 % increase. The group, which operates in 22 countries, said revenues in Nigeria rose 24.5 % even as the South African rand weakened in value against the Nigerian naira during the period. Uganda, Ghana and Cameroon also reported healthy revenue growth. The Johannesburg-listed firm said data services were the key driver of revenue growth, with South Africa and Nigeria the largest contributors. The two countries accounted for 77.9 %of data revenue growth. The number of data users increased by 37.3 % to 80.6 million, boosted by increased smartphone ownership. There were 34.8 million smartphones on our network in the end of December 2013, which is a 59 % increase as compared to the year 2012. The company said it expects the launch of its own affordable smartphone to boost the figure. MTN was founded in 1994, and mainly operates in Africa but also in Iran, Syria and Sudan where it is suffering the effects of the US and EU imposed sanctions on those countries.