Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment defined by persistently high inflation and local currency depreciation in some key markets, MTN Group’s fintech operations were among the few standouts in the year’s first quarter.
Africa’s largest telecom operator revealed its Q1 results, which show that while active data customers increased by 7.8% to 149.2 million, data revenue declined by 14.7%.
Conversely, fintech revenue climbed by 11.4%, while monthly active Mobile Money (MoMo) users increased by 6.2% to 65.5 million.
MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita noted that global geopolitical tensions, which remained high during the period, influenced the telco’s performance.
He said: “This included the ongoing civil war in Sudan, which severely affected network availability and revenue generation in our business in that market. We were also impacted by cable cuts that resulted in downtime for significant subsea cables connecting the African continent, particularly in West Africa.”
Despite these setbacks, Mupita said MTN is determined to build the “largest and most valuable fintech” platform.
This is as fintech is turning into a golden goose for many telcos, including MTN Group, which said in Q1 that fintech revenue increased by 25.0% year-on-year (YoY).
Mupita said: “The contribution of advanced services to total MoMo revenue rose to 30.1% (up 6.6pp). Active MoMo users increased by 6.2% YoY to 65.5 million; excluding OTC (over-the-counter) customers in Nigeria, we closed at 62.2 million, representing a growth of 8.1% YoY, largely driven by Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda and Benin.”
“The development of our overall fintech ecosystem continued to exhibit strength and resilience with an 18.3% increase in transaction volumes to 4.8 billion transactions, and transaction value up by 11.2% to $72.3 billion.”
Turning to other key fintech verticals, Mupita said: “Our payments and e-commerce ecosystem performed strongly and grew revenue by 44.6% YoY, supported by the growth in merchants and unique-payer activity. The total value of MoMo merchant payments rose by 32.6% YoY to $4.7 billion.”
In Banktech, he said the company facilitated a total loan disbursement value of $371.7 million, representing 17.4% year-over-year growth.
He added: “The growth was underpinned by the maturity of partner-led lending products and the launch of new products in our key markets. Uganda and Ghana were the key drivers of the performance, driving growth in total loan disbursement and the number of unique users utilising the service.
“The total value of remittances sustained its strong momentum and increased by 63.5% YoY to $883 million in Q1. This was driven by increased active corridors, improved customer experience, and focused digital marketing activities.
