What the company plans for years to come Kampala, Uganda | JULIUS BUSINGE | MTN Uganda recorded 9.5% surge in revenue to Shs1.98 trillion in 2020 amidst the effects of COVID-19, citing a sharp growth in customer subscribers.
The company’s subscriber numbers increased by 12.3% to 14.2 million, up from 12.6million in the previous year.
Active data users increased by 34.8% to 4.6 million as COVID-19 drove subscribers to embrace online services such as learn-from-home and work- from- home.
The firm’s revenues from voice services grew by 3.9%, data (up 27.8%) and fin-tech (up 11.8%).
Its performance was underpinned by the increase in the user base and usage, helped by customer value management initiatives.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin expanded by 2.4percentage points to 49.5%, on higher revenue and effective implementation of cost efficiencies.
In pursuit of their financial inclusion objectives and growth strategy, mobile money (MoMo) users grew by 14.4% year-on-year to 8.5million, spurred by the move towards cashless financial transactions to avert the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the growth in fin-tech revenue was moderated by reductions in transaction fees to support customers, lockdown restrictions on agents and a slowdown in economic activity.
Nevertheless, company executives said the demand builds a solid base for future growth in their fin-tech business.
“MTN Uganda is committed to enhancing the wellbeing of our customers especially in the midst of global challenges. We will continue to invest in better connectivity, a seamless customer experience and better pricing structure to enable us to continue delivering a bold, new digital world for our customers,” said Wim Vanhelleputte, the CEO at MTN Uganda.
Listing in offing Vanhelleputte further explained that with the planned listing of MTN Uganda on the Uganda Securities Exchange, the telecom company looks forward to enabling Ugandans to own part of the MTN’s success story, and that this will further accelerate performance going forward.He said MTN Uganda will continue to invest heavily over the next five years in infrastructure development and advanced technologies to give the customer a better experience and help the company further enhance its leadership position in the market.Meanwhile, at group level, MTN continued to prioritise health and safety of its people and mourned the loss of 10 MTN employees to COVID-19, after reporting a total of 1,404 infections in the period to the end of February 2021.“We are pleased to have made a US$25 million donation in support of the African Union’s […]
