By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Africa’s leading telecommunications company, MTN Group, said the lockdowns imposed on some of its markets on the continebt affected revenues generated from two of its services.
The Chief Financial Officer of the South Africa-based telco, Mr Ralph Mupita, stated that last month, MTN Group recorded decline in voice traffic and mobile money transactions, but a surge in data traffic.
Many countries in Africa, including Nigeria and South Africa, two of the biggest markets of MTN, imposed restriction on movements in April to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus disease also known as COVID-19.
This forced people to remain indoors and while offices were closed, employees were asked to work from home, resulting in the increase in the use of data.
Also, during the time, most meetings, including Annual General Meetings (AGMs), international gatherings, seminars and others were done online through video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Duo, Webex, etc.
“We have experienced a continued surge in data traffic during the month of April, but voice traffic and mobile money transactions were under pressure given various lockdown measures taken across markets,” Mr Mupita said in a statement on Thursday.
However, he emphasised that, “Where lockdown measures have been lifted or relaxed recently, voice recharges and mobile money transaction volumes have improved.”
“For now, we are maintaining our 3 – 5 years medium-term guidance but will update the capital markets in August of any changes when we release our H1 2020 results,” the CFO stated.
On his part, President/CEO of MTN Group, Mr Rob Shuter, assured that the company will “continue to focus on our key priorities: looking after our people, our customers and our networks while we focus on efficiencies.”
“For our people, the immediate priority is their health and safety, where the work-from-home programmes across our markets empower our staff to work remotely while ensuring continuity in our operations.
“For our customers, we have ramped up our digital channels as a service alternative, to enable them to continue purchasing airtime and accessing our products and services seamlessly as well as launching Y’ello Hope Packages in most of our markets,” he said.
MTN has said for now, it is not only focused on managing the risks brought about by COVID-19, but also on the opportunities it creates in the accelerated digitalization it has brought about.
“We believe we are well positioned as a company to benefit from this evolution, especially given our focus on growth in our data, digital and financial services businesses.
“The group remains focused on the execution of our bright strategy to deliver sustainable growth in our operations and value to our stakeholders,” the firm said in the statement obtained by Business Post.
In the first quarter of 2020, MTN delivered a solid performance, increasing constant currency service revenue by 11.1 percent and EBITDA by 15.6 percent with EBITDA margin improving by 2.1 percent to 43.2 percent, in line with its medium-term targets.
The group recorded voice, data and fintech revenue growth of 6.3 percent, 26.4 percent and 26.0 percent respectively as it continued to execute on its strategic objectives and progress toward becoming a digital operator. Digital revenue has returned to growth, increasing by 15.6 percent in the period under consideration.
Business Post reports that MTN Group operates mobile mobile services in Nigeria and other African nations via MoMo.
The company said in the first three months of this year, it accelerated its MoMo agency network in Nigeria, under the super-agent licence, adding 70,000 agents in the first quarter, bringing the total number of registered agents to 178,000.
Dipo Olowookere 
Adedapo Adesanya