MTN nears 100m users with 8% quarterly rise
May 5, 2009
By Gugulakhe Lourie
MTN added more than 7.5 million users in the first quarter, Africa's biggest cellular operator by subscribers said yesterday, showing growth in key markets and boosting its shares.
Subscriber growth may have been "slightly weaker than my expectations, but the numbers again show there is quite a bit of growth out there", said Jan Meintjes, a telecoms analyst at Gryphon Asset Management. He added that MTN's prospects looked good.
MTN's shares gained 7 percent to close at R118.80 on the JSE yesterday, outpacing a 3.65 percent rise in the Top40 index of blue chip stocks.
MTN, which operates cellular networks across Africa and the Middle East, said that its total subscriber numbers rose 8 percent to 98.2 million, largely boosted by its operations in Iran and Nigeria.
The group said its Iranian customers grew 14 percent to 18.3 million. In Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and MTN's biggest market, users rose 12 percent to 25.9 million.
Johannesburg-based MTN, which anticipates adding 22.6 million subscribers by the end of this year, said users in its home market rose a modest 2 percent to 17.4 million.
While the global economic slowdown has hit telecoms firms in developed countries, Africa has so far been relatively unscathed and consumers are still spending on cellphones.
MTN rival Vodacom, which will list on the JSE on May 18, had 37.8 million users last year.
MTN said currency volatility had generally had a negative effect on average revenue per user (Arpu) reported in dollars.
Arpu measures how much each subscriber spends on voice calls and data transmission.
First-quarter Arpu at MTN's local unit fell 6 percent as consumer spending slowed and penetration into lower market segments increased.
Arpu in Iran remained relatively stable, while Arpu in Nigeria and Sudan experienced resilience in local currencies.
"The Arpu is slightly weaker than anticipated, but the big thing there is the strength in the dollar, which obviously diluted" many Arpu figures, said Meintjes.
In the Republic of Congo, subscribers grew 14 percent to 942 000, while in Afghanistan users climbed 12 percent to 2.35 million. - Reuters
|
|
