By Dipo Olowookere
Leading telecommunications company in the country, MTN Nigeria, has announced its financial statements for the first six months of 2019 and from the look of things, the firm delivered a strong performance across key parameters.
The revenue recorded a double-digit growth of 12.2 percent to finish at N567.0 billion against N505.7 billion in the first six months of 2018.
Also, the profit before tax improved by 30.8 percent to N141.8 billion from N108.4 billion, while the profit after tax appreciated by 34.7 percent to N98.9 billion from N73.4 billion.
For the other income, N48.1 million was realized in H1 2019 compared with N45.4 million in H1 2018, while finance income dropped to N10.5 million from N12.4 million, with the operating profit going up N190.4 billion from N136.5 billion.
Finance costs, according to the half year report, increased to N59.1 billion this year from N40.5 billion last year, while the amount spent on advertisements, sponsorships and sales promotion rose to N8.5 billion from N8.0 billion.
However, the value added services costs reduced to N6 billion from N10.3 billion, with the interconnect costs rising to N52.4 billion from N46.8 billion, roaming costs going down to N1.7 billion from N2.5 billion and transmission costs going up to N2.8 billion from N2.7 billion.
It was further revealed in the results that the EBITDA increased by 40 percent in the period under review to N304.9 billion, while the EBITDA margin expanded to 53.8 percent on account of the implementation of IFRS 16, with the mobile subscribers growing by 3.3 million to 61.5 million.
In the first six months of this year, the earnings per share of MTN Nigeria stood at N4.86k against N3.61k in the first six months of last year.
The full results can be viewed HERE
Adedapo Adesanya