MTN Nigeria exceed 20m subscriber-base

The MTN Group is pleased to announce that it has increased its subscriber base to 80,736,000 with its Nigeria’s operation crossing the 20 million mark as at 30 September 2008 across the Group’s 21 operations in Africa and the Middle East .

MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Phuthuma Nhleko, who disclosed this, said that the third quarter result showed a 9 per cent increase from 74,058,000 subscribers recorded at 30 June 2008 by the group.

He also said that the proportional subscriber contribution between MTN’s regions remain unchanged with that at 30 June 2008.

He cited for instance that South and East Africa (SEA) region contributed 28 per cent of the Group’s total subscribers while West and Central Africa (WECA) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions contributed 44 per cent and 28 per cent respectively.

The WECA region increased subscriber base by 10 per cent for the quarter under review with MTN Nigeria, contributing 56 per cent to the WECA region’s subscriber base, thus recording a 9 per cent increase in subscriber base to 20,171,000.

Aggressive network rollout in Nigeria, he said, continued in Q3 with 524 Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) rolled out during the quarter.

“Quality of service improved significantly resulting in the advertising ban being lifted by the regulator,” he said.

In the WECA region, he further said that MTN Zone was introduced in Ghana, Cameroon and Benin during the period under review with Ghana rolling out 377 BTSs and increased its subscriber base by 14 per cent to 5,713,000.

Both Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire increased their subscriber bases by 7 per cent to 3,313,000 and 3,243,000 respectively.

In addition, the SEA region increased subscriber base by 7 per cent for the quarter with South African operation contributing 72 per cent subscribers, while its subscribers increased by 4 per cent to 16,173,000 for the quarter ended 30 September 2008.

According to him, the Postpaid net connections were satisfactory for the quarter, with growth underpinned by the value proposition of MTN Zone, which was enhanced to include off net calls and which continues to be a success.

Uganda increased its subscriber base by 16 per cent followed the introduction of MTN Zone in late July, with approximately 2 million subscribers on this price plan at 30 September 2008.

In the MENA region a record of 10 per cent increase in subscribers for the quarter was made.

MTN attributed this mainly due to continued growth from the Iran operation, which increased its subscribers by 13 per cent to 13,139,000.

Following the substantial disconnections in second quarter (Q2), he noted that subscriber growth in Sudan started to show an improvement with a 7 per cent increase in its subscribers to 2,266,000.

“Syria ‘s more modest increase of 2 per cent is attributed to a slowdown in acquisitions during the Ramadan period,” he said, stressing MTN is satisfied with the subscriber growth across its operations and will continue to explore value enhancing opportunities.


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