over the dullness it has been recording in recent time in its Nigerian
operations.
The telecoms firm, which currently operates in 21 countries on the
continent, yesterday gave a downbeat outlook for Nigeria, its biggest
market, after losing high-end users to Gulf rival, Etisalat.
According to Reuters, the South Africa-based MTN, which reported a 10
per cent decline in firsthalf earnings, is fighting to maintain its
lead in Nigeria ahead of competitors such as Etisalat and India's
Bharti Airtel. But poor network quality in vital areas of the Federal
Capital Territory (FCT) and Lagos has prompted its more affluent
clients to switch to Etisalat.
MTN's Chief Executive, Sifiso Dabengwa, was frank about the network
superiority of the Gulf's second-biggest mobile phone operator. "The
key issue really for us has been to improve the data quality and
speeds," Dabengwa told reporters and analysts at the company's results
presentation in South Africa. "Clearly, Etisalat's network, from a
data point view, has been better than ours."
He said MTN would use the bulk of a $1.5 billion spending package for
the rest of this year to expand high-speed networks in Nigeria and
South Africa, where rivals such as Vodacom Group and Cell C have
slashed voice tariffs to gain market share.
However, analysts said spending on a network in Nigeria, Africa's most
populous country, was unlikely to deliver a strong enough performance
to offset the impact of a sharp economic slowdown, which is curbing
consumers' disposable income. "We expect the balance of the year to
remain challenging for MTN Nigeria," the company said in its results
announcement.
New Telegraph gathered that since the mobile number portability scheme
was launched in Nigeria in 2013, Etisalat has been the highest gainer
on a month-on-month basis on the porting table as released by the
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Of the total 18, 135 lines that ported (incoming) in the latest report
for the month of May, Etisalat topped the table with 12, 252 lines,
and the highest monthly gains so far by any operator since the NCC
launched the MNP scheme in 2013. Next to Etisalat is Airtel, which
gained 4,161 incoming ported lines while Globacom came third with
1,065 ported lines and MTN with the lowest gained numbers of 657.
Also in June, of the 21, 060 numbers that ported from one network to
another, Etisalat had 13, 382, followed by Airtel with 6, 290 ported
lines with Globacom and MTN coming third and fourth with 880 and 526
ported lines respectively.
In spite of this development, MTN remains the largest telecoms
networks with 62.8 million active subscribers, representing 43 per
cent. Globacom is the second largest with a total of 31.2
million-subscriber base (21 per cent). Glo is followed by Airtel,
which came third with 29.5-million subscriber base (20 per cent) and
Etisalat with 22.8 million subscribers, equivalent to 16 per cent.
According to Reuters, MTN reported a 10.3 per cent fall in headline
earnings per share (EPS) from a year earlier to 654 cents for
January-June. Its shares, down six per cent this year, slipped just
0.3 per cent after the results as the company had warned that headline
EPS would fall by between 10 per cent and 15 per cent.
Headline is the main profit measure in South Africa and it strips out
certain one-off items.
Handset supply disruptions in South Africa, due to a seven-week strike
by about 2,000 entry-level staff over pay, also hurt earnings. It
prompted MTN to slash its full-year forecast for subscriber growth in
South Africa, its secondbiggest market, by 25 per cent.
Globally, its subscribers rose by just over three per cent to 231
million during the first half.
"MTN's third-largest market is Iran and it hopes to repatriate about
$1.1 billion rand in accumulated dividends frozen by international
sanctions once Iran's nuclear deal with world powers is finalised,"
said MTN's Chief Financial Officer, Brett Goschen, said.
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