MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, known as MTN Nigeria, Wednesday, released its quarter three results for the nine months ended 30 September 2019, where it recorded increased Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) by 39.3 per cent to N460.1 billion and an increased subscriber number by 0.1 million to reach 61.6 million subscribers on its network.

The report also showed increased active data subscribers by 1.6 million to reach 22.3 million active data users on its network.

According to the Q3 financial report, the telecoms company’s service revenue however increased by 12.1 per cent to N854.9 billion, even though EBITDA grew by 39.3 per cent to N460.1 billion. The EBITDA margin increased to 53.7 per cent, while earnings per share rose by 29 per cent to N7.29k, with increased capital expenditure (Capex) by 39.5% to N154.1 billion.

MTN Nigeria CEO, Ferdi Moolman, while analysing the Q3 financial results, said the bottom-line remained strong with growth of 24.0 per cent and 28.9 per cent respectively in profit before and after tax.

According to Moolman, “Our company’s performance is very encouraging, demonstrating the resilience of our business despite a challenging operating environment. We sustained double-digit growth in service revenue led by growth in voice and data revenue.

We recorded 61.6 million subscribers, representing a 0.1 million increase QoQ. We were required to undertake a SIM re-registration process, which resulted in a disconnection of around 0.6 million active subscribers, limiting base growth.

“During the quarter, we focused on the end-to-end optimisation and repositioning of our data offerings. We made significant investments in accelerating 4G network expansion; and leveraging 800MHz spectrum activated in Q2 2019, we launched enhanced 4G+ services in Lagos, Abuja, and Port-Harcourt. We also changed our pricing strategy, placing us in an even stronger competitive position going forward. As a result, we have begun to see promising results with active data subscriber net additions of 1.6 million and 4G population coverage at over 35% in 64 cities. Data traffic volume also increased by over 68 per cent, while data revenue rose by 34.9 per cent year on year.”