In the first six months of 2026, MTN Group service revenue grew by 17.5% to R115 billion, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation before once-off items expanded by almost a quarter to R56 billion.
This, as the mobile network operator delivered strong growth, robust cash generation and increased returns in the first half of 2026.
In a statement, the company says after launching the Ambition 2030 strategy to guide the next phase of MTN’s value creation, the group also advanced various strategic initiatives – most notably the planned acquisition of tower group IHS Holdings and the launch of a share buyback programme.
On a pro forma basis, MTN’s proposed transaction to buy the remaining shares in IHS is accretive to revenue, profit after tax and adjusted headline earnings per share.
MTN notes that the transaction has received approval from various regulators, including Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
As part of the conditional approvals, MTN will sell-down 30% of IHS Nigeria to local Nigerian investors, on an arms-length commercial basis and subject to market conditions.
Subject to remaining regulatory approvals, MTN anticipates that the IHS transaction will close in the second half of 2026.
Shareholder remuneration framework
MTN announced the launch of a share buyback programme of 31 million ordinary shares for an aggregate consideration of up to six billion rand.
Subject to market conditions, the telco says the programme will continue for as long as it remains value accretive to MTN shareholders.
The share buyback programme is part of the shareholder remuneration framework announced with the launch of Ambition 2030, of delivering between 40% and 60% of equity free cashflow to shareholders either in cash dividends or share buybacks.
According to MTN, growth was led by MTN Ghana, MTN Nigeria, MTN Uganda, MTN Côte d’Ivoire, MTN Cameroon and the broader portfolio, while MTN South Africa’s 1.5% increase in service revenue reflected the near-term cost of deliberate management actions to improve the quality of its large prepaid customer base.
In Q2 2026, MTN SA’s service revenue grew 2.3%, an increase from the 0.7% in Q1 2026.
“The group’s overall performance in the period reflects strong conversion of the commercial momentum we see across our markets into growth in earnings, cashflow and returns,” says MTN Group president and CEO Ralph Mupita.
“We are encouraged by the record margins delivered in the period, as well as the strong cash upstreaming from operations,” he notes, adding that MTN committed almost R20 billion in capital expenditure in H1 to expand the mobile network, connect more homes and invest in modernisation of IT across the business.
The company points out that macro conditions were broadly supportive in the period. Blended average inflation slowed to 9.3% from 14% and the foreign exchange rates of MTN’s main markets were stable against the US dollar, it notes.
However, against the rand, the currencies of most MTN markets weakened, detracting from earnings growth in rand terms, it adds.
“Underlying demand for our services remained strong. At 30 June 2026, MTN served 317.7 million customers across 19 markets. Of these, more than 179 million were active data users who boosted the traffic carried by MTN’s networks by nearly 23% to 14.3 petabytes,” says the company.
The fintech ecosystem continued to show strong growth, with the group’s 70.8 million active Mobile Money users increasing demand for secure and convenient services and lifting the value of MTN fintech transactions by more than a third to $330 billion.
MTN explains that the volume of these transactions increased by 17% to 13 billion. The number of active agents grew to 1.4 million, and the number of active fintech merchants increased by more than 18% to 2.3 million. Advanced services led overall fintech revenue growth.
SA woes
In a highly-competitive market marked by constrained liquidity, MTN SA recorded a marginal decline in subscribers to 39.5 million, says the firm, adding that most of these – 28.2 million – were prepaid customers.
“MTN SA’s prepaid performance was encouraging as we saw improving growth on data, fewer customers using airtime advance for recharging and increased bank recharges. The deliberate reset of the prepaid base will deliver higher quality base growth over time,” Mupita says.
Good growth in the MTN SA postpaid, enterprise and wholesale businesses drove stronger growth in Q2 2026 versus Q1 2026.
On the prospects for the overall group, MTN says increasing digital adoption and financial inclusion across Africa supported the long-term outlook for demand across the group’s connectivity, fintech and digital infrastructure businesses.
“While geopolitical developments, foreign exchange volatility and inflationary pressures remain areas of focus, our diversified portfolio, strong balance sheet, strong market positions, and disciplined execution provide resilience,” says Mupita, re-affirming the group’s medium-term guidance.
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