With the publication of its financial year results ending December 2020, MTN Nigeria shows it has upped its market leadership position by a wide margin with an increment of 12.2 million mobile subscribers bringing the total 76.5 million. Add to that, MTN also recorded active data users’ increase of 7.4 million taking the total to 32.6 million. These subscriber records had positive financial impact on the bottom line of the telecoms company as service revenue was increased by 14.7% to NGN1.3 trillion, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 9.7% to N685.7 billion. Also, EBITDA margin declined by 2.5 percentage point (pp) to 50.9%, profit before tax (PBT) grew by 2.6% to N298.9 billion while earnings per share (EPS) rose by 0.9% to N10.
Interestingly, this is happening at a time the company is working assiduously to improve its infrastructure with the launching of its Supersonic AirFibre offering in South Africa. The product is said to overcome distance and a lack of infrastructure in urban, township and rural communities to bring fibre-quality connectivity to more households across the country. In the words of Calvin Collett, the Managing Director of MTN South Africa’s ISP, MTN is breaking down the traditional barriers to entry that have denied much access to a modern, connected life, adding that “from Soweto to Swellendam, we believe that every household deserves the speed and benefits of fibre-like connectivity, and through AirFibre we believe we can achieve this.”
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Supersonic AirFibre is expected to bring high-speed, inexpensive, and uncapped connectivity solutions to areas in which traditional fibre installations are not available. Built on unlicensed spectrum, the solution was designed, built and is maintained by MTN’s technology team to deliver a network quality that is in line with MTN’s standards, at affordable rates.
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Due to the current major lack of available spectrum, MTN has located unlicensed spectrum – a readily available resource – and combined it with innovative technology now available to effectively leverage open spectrum. This is something that was previously not possible or stable. Supersonic AirFibre will be made available in areas where customers register their demand for the offering.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry