Telecommunications giant, MTN Ghana, has continued to contribute significantly to the country’s economy in various ways over the years, maintaining its status as one of the most tax compliant companies in the country.
According to the company’s audited first quarter 2022 Financial Report, it paid a total of GH¢685 million as direct and indirect taxes to government during the first quarter (Q1) of the year. This represents 29.1 percent of the Tech Giants’ total revenues for the period.
In the 2021 financial year, MTN Ghana paid a total of GH¢2,767 million as direct and indirect taxes to the government of Ghana. Also, as part of its contribution to the economy, the company spent GH¢14.3 million on various socio-economic initiatives across the country last year.
In the first three months of this year, thus, from January to March, MTN Ghana recorded a year-on-year growth in profit of 53.7% with a profit of GH¢707.4 million. Mobile money contributed GH¢515 million to the company’s revenues during the period.
Mobile subscribers increased from 25.4 million at the end of 2021 to 27.1 million at the end of the first quarter this year. Meanwhile, active data subscribers rose to 12.8 million in Q1 2022, from12.4 million last year.
Active Mobile Money (MoMo) users also increased to 11.7 million in Q1 2022, from 11.0 million at the end of December last year. This means that MTN either welcomed some new MoMo users to its platform in the first quarter of the year or some accounts that were previously dormant were activated.
Growth in service revenues
MTN Ghana delivered a 34.5% year-on-year increase in service revenue driven by growth in voice, data and MoMo. This growth was underpinned by the continued execution of its Ambition 2025 Strategy and sustained investments of GH¢277 million in capital projects (capex) to support improvements in service quality and the expansion of network capacity and coverage.
In its forecast for 2022, MTN stated in its 2021 Annual report that “We forecast service revenue growth in the high teens over the medium-term from the previous guidance of 13% to 15%”. With the recent first quarter results, it means the company is on track to meeting its medium-term target.
“In the quarter, we rolled out 62 2G, 59 3G and 352 4G sites and modernized 301 4G sites which supported the increase in 4G coverage by 1.2pp to 91.8%. We also continued to invest in digitizing our customer service and improving the Ayoba super app and the flagship MyMTN app. These efforts, along with our CVM and other customer experience initiatives, helped to grow our subscriber base to 27.1 million”.
MTN Ghana
Voice and data performances
Voice revenue grew by 16.9% year-on-year to GH¢785 million in Q1 2022. The contribution of voice to service revenue however, declined from 38.5% to 33.4% year-on-year in favor of increased contribution from data.
Active data subscribers grew to 12.8 million in Q1 2022 and helped drive a 64.4% year-on-year growth in data revenue to GH¢872 million. This was further bolstered by growth in the number of smartphones on the network (+5.8% year-on-year), data traffic (+51.3% year-on-year) and megabytes consumed per active subscriber (+32.3% year-on-year).
In its recent forecast, MTN Ghana indicated that “we will continue to execute on our Ambition 2025 strategy to drive growth and efficiencies in the business, as we navigate rising macro environment challenges and prepare for new regulatory developments such as the E-Levy”. The company emphasized that it maintains its medium-term guidance for service revenue growth of high teens (in percentage terms) in the medium-term.
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