MTN Group offers subscriber metrics for its key markets in Q3

MTN Group has warned that its subscriber growth has been impacted by price competition and registration regulations. The South African market remains challenging given regulatory and competitive actions.

MTN South Africa showed some progress after a challenging first half but the company also expects conditions to remain challenging for the balance of 2013. The company added 233,000 subscribers in Q313 bringing its total number of subscribers to 25.2 million at the end of the period.

Revenue growth declined year-on-year, mainly due to lower effective voice tariffs and slower subscriber growth. Data remains the largest contributor to revenue growth with an increase of 16.6 per cent year-on-year. Data users increased to 13.9 million.

MTN Nigeria delivered a satisfactory performance, maintaining share, in a highly competitive market. Subscribers grew marginally to 55.6 million. This was impacted by the mandatory SIM registration deadline in July 2013.

MTN Irancell’s subscriber base declined by 1.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter to 41.3 million. The slow-down in gross connections was due to the weakening economy in a fully penetrated market and increased promotional activities by the competitor. Local currency data revenue increased 54.8 per cent year-on-year and now contributes 9.6 per cent to overall revenue. Local currency ARPU increased by 4.3 per cent assisted by the increase in data revenue.