JOHANNESBURG - MTN Nigeria now has 68.5 million mobile subscribers on its network after adding 4.2 million new subscribers during the March quarter of 2020 representing a 6.5 percent quarter on quarter growth, the company said in a statement.
It said the growth in subscribers underscored a continued growth in market share and built on the momentum achieved in the fourth quarter of 2019 .
Active data subscribers also increased by 6.6 percent to 26.8 million, representing an additional 1.7 million data users.
MTN Nigeria chief executive Ferdi Moolman said the company recorded a solid performance in the first quarter.
“Service revenue was strong and rose by 16.7 percent driven by voice and data revenue. 4.2 million subscribers were added to the network driving voice revenue growth of 7.4 percent. Data revenue increased by 59.2 percent supported by growth in data traffic with a further 1.7 million active subscribers connecting to the internet during the quarter,” Moolman said.
Moolman said the company continued to deepen data penetration with the further rollout of 4G sites, increasing 4G population coverage to 48 percent in the first quarter of 2020 from 44 percent at the end of last year.
However, the company warned that threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, oil price volatility, and foreign exchange rates and availability called for a more measured outlook in the near-term.
“The remainder of the year will be shaped by the impact of these developments, which remains highly uncertain at this time,” said MTN Nigeria. Dineo Faku