MTN South Africa made more money from its customers in the third quarter than the previous three months.
This is according to the group's quarterly update for the period ended 30 September, published yesterday, which shows overall average revenue per user (ARPU) in SA rose 4.4% from R94.23 in the second quarter to R98.33 in the third quarter. This as the group said its active subscribers in SA had dropped by 2.3% quarter-on-quarter, to almost 29.5 million.
ARPU is an indication of the average amount of money a mobile operator makes from each of its customers per month. It is generally calculated by dividing the average monthly service revenue by the average monthly active customers during the period.
When looking at the change year-on-year, the overall ARPU in SA jumped 11.6% from R88.12 in the third quarter of 2017, to R98.33 last quarter.
MTN SA also saw improvements in prepaid and postpaid incomes. Overall postpaid ARPU rose by 1.8% quarter-on-quarter, to R142.78, from R140.23. Excluding telemetry, postpaid ARPU was up 2.2% to R271.14. Meanwhile, prepaid customers paid, on average, R77.52 per month, an increase of 3.9% from R74.64 the previous quarter.
However, in US dollar terms, the overall ARPU in SA actually dropped by 5.2% quarter-on-quarter, from $7.45 to $7.06, excluding telemetry. However, the South African operation saw service revenue increase by 3% year-on-year for the quarter, edging closer to MTN's medium-term target of mid-single-digit growth.
At the end of the quarter, MTN SA had 23.7 million prepaid users (down 3.4% quarter-on-quarter), 2.9 million postpaid subscribers (up 2.1% quarter-on-quarter) and 2.8 million telemetry subscribers.
Other operations
In comparison, MTN customers in Nigeria paid, on average, 1 492.25 naira per month during the quarter, only 0.065% higher than the previous quarter but an increase of 6% year-on-year when ARPU was N1 407.73. In dollar terms, the ARPU in Nigeria was flat at $4.12 in the past quarter, compared to $4.13 in quarter two; however, it was actually down by 4.4% from $4.31 in the third quarter of 2017.
Nigeria is MTN's biggest territory by subscribers, with 56 million customers on the network there. However, the group has been facing legal issues in the West African nation after the Central Bank of Nigeria in August alleged improper dividend repatriations by MTN Nigeria between 2007 and 2015 of $8.1 billion (R118 billion), while the attorney-general alleged unpaid taxes on foreign payments and imports of approximately $2 billion (R29 billion). MTN Nigeria continues to deny these allegations and claims.
Iran, MTN's second biggest territory by subscribers, where it operates as a joint venture, saw a major decrease in ARPU in dollar terms, with the average revenue per user dropping by 37.8% from $4.05 in the second quarter, to $2.52 in the third quarter.
Despite strong service revenue growth of 14.1% year-on-year, MTN Irancell had a tough quarter "due to the impact on costs of the sharp devaluation of the rial after the government announced a new exchange rate regime for regulating imports".
Irancell has 44.4 million active subscribers, down slightly from 44.6 million the previous quarter. When looking at the ARPU for Irancell in local currency, it was up 4.3% quarter-on-quarter from 167 793.00 rial to 175 049.22 rial.
The MTN group added 2.5 million new subscribers in the third quarter, bringing its total up to 225.4 million subscribers across 21 countries across Africa and the Middle East.
When looking at APRU in US dollar terms, the territory pulling in the highest average revenue per user in the third quarter was Botswana with an ARPU of $7.24, followed by eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) at $7.17 and then SA at $7.06. Congo-Brazzaville was in fourth place with APRU of $6.69 and then Benin with $4.88. The lowest ARPU out of the 21 countries was in Sudan, where the ARPU was just $1.45.
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