MTN Nigeria Communications Plc has recorded a new milestone as the first listed company on the Nigerian Exchange Ltd to declare a record N1.16trn revenue in six months.
The company’s 2023 half-year financial statement revealed on Friday that MTN also posted N421.57bn profit before tax, a rise from N352.3bn.
Profit after tax fell to N128.7bn from N181.63bn recorded in June 2022.
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MTN controls 38.7 per cent of the Nigerian market with 85.58 million subscribers as of May 2023, according to data by the Nigerian Communications Commission.
The books show that voice revenue was N474.1bn compared to N417.3bn recorded in June 2023, while data revenue grew to N469.3bn, up from N348.2bn last year.
Revenue from SMS grew from N29.8bn to N41.7bn in the review period while interconnect and roaming fetched the telecom company N84bn.
The company maintained a strong asset base of N3.1trn compared to N2.7trn while liability amounted to N1.25trn.
But the company was frustrated by the depreciation of the naira after the Central Bank of Nigeria unified rates at the Investors’ and Exporters’ window.
When the apex bank floated the currency, the rates went from N462 to around N756 per dollars.
Consequently, foreign exchange losses as a result of the policy were N131.45bn, up from N13.62bn recorded last year.
MTN said, “The business was significantly affected by a major deterioration in foreign exchange (FX) rates.
The FX Rate increased from N461.10 to approximately N756.08 to $1 after the unification of all segments of the forex market, resulting in the collapse of the NAFEX rate. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing effort to redenominate some categories of these foreign denominated expenditure to the local currency.”