MTN Group has reported a strong financial performance for the 2025 financial year, with service revenue increasing and its Nigerian business emerging as the group’s biggest profit contributor.
The company said service revenue rose nearly 25% to R218 billion ($13 billion) for the year ended December 31, 2025. Management linked the growth largely to strong performance in its key West African markets, especially MTN Nigeria and MTN Ghana.
The result statement also confirmed that 2025 was the final year of the company’s Ambition 2025 strategy, which focused on expanding data services and digital financial platforms across its markets.
Across the group’s 16 operating countries, the total customer base rose to more than 307 million by the end of the year. Out of that figure, about 172 million were active data users, while about 70 million used mobile money services.
MTN said it invested about R38 billion during the year to strengthen its network and digital platforms. The investment expanded coverage and boosted capacity as demand for data continued to grow.
Data traffic on the network increased by 27%. At the same time, average monthly data usage climbed to 12.5GB per user, up from 10.8GB previously.
The group’s financial technology arm also expanded, with mobile money transactions rising by 15% to more than 23 billion transactions during the year. The total value of those payments exceeded 500 billion dollars.
Profitability also improved significantly, as earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation reached R98.5 billion, representing growth of more than one-third in constant currency. The company said cost savings of R3.6 billion helped support that result.
The board declared a dividend of 500 cents per share for the year, a 45% increase from the 345 cents paid in 2024. The payout exceeded the company’s earlier guidance of at least 370 cents.
Group Chief Executive Ralph Mupita said the company will introduce a new shareholder remuneration structure aimed at distributing between 40% and 60% of equity-free cash flow.
The plan includes a share buyback programme of up to R6 billion, which the company said will be carried out gradually from 2026.
Nigeria drives earnings growth
MTN Nigeria swung back to profit after tax of ₦1.1 trillion in 2025, recovering from a ₦400.4 billion loss the previous year when currency depreciation triggered heavy foreign exchange losses, affecting revenue.
In the final quarter of the year alone, pre-tax profit rose to ₦569.6 billion. That was a 248.8% increase compared with ₦163.3 billion recorded in the same period in 2024.
At the group level, the Nigerian subsidiary also overtook MTN South Africa as the largest profit contributor.
Operating earnings in Nigeria more than doubled to about 1.93 billion dollars, far ahead of South Africa’s roughly 1.05 billion dollars. MTN Ghana also posted strong revenue growth, with operating earnings rising to about 1.28 billion dollars.
Together, the expansion in Nigeria and Ghana pushed West Africa to the centre of the company’s profit structure.
Growth supported by scale
Nigeria’s performance shows the size of the country’s telecom market and the growing demand for data and digital payments.
With a population of more than 200 million people and high smartphone use, the market generates large volumes of traffic and digital transactions.
However, the Nigerian operation is very expensive to run. Telecom towers rely heavily on diesel generators because electricity supply is unreliable, and additional security is required for many base stations.
As a result, network operating costs in Nigeria are significantly higher than in South Africa.
Even so, the scale of the market has allowed profits to expand faster than operating costs. Direct network costs rose only slightly during the year, while earnings more than doubled.
Investor confidence returns
Shares of MTN Group have increased nearly 80% over the past year, pushing the company’s market value to about 381 billion rand, or roughly 23.7 billion dollars.
With Nigeria now accounting for a growing share of profits, the country is expected to support the group’s future investment decisions, particularly in network expansion, data services and mobile financial technology.
