MTN, the multinational Telecoms group has announced plans to hike its service prices due to ever-increasing inflation. This was made known on Thursday in its first quarter report filed with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
According to the MTN group-
“We anticipate that trading conditions across markets will remain challenging for the remainder of 2023 and we will continue to execute on our proactive measures to manage the near-term challenges and risks.
“Within this environment of elevated inflation, implementing selective price increases across the portfolio remains a critical priority to ensure that operations generate sufficient cash flows to fund future capital expenditure needed for building world-class networks.
“We will continue to have the necessary engagements with the regulatory authorities on such needed increases.”
MTN Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita, in the statement, said-
“MTN’s resilient business model and operational execution enabled us to continue to successfully navigate difficult macroeconomic, geopolitical and regulatory conditions in Q1 2023.
“Local currencies generally weakened against the dollar, and foreign exchange availability was limited in several of our key markets affecting the pace of capital expenditure and our ability to upstream dividends and management fees.
“Over and above reduced economic activity in South Africa, MTN South Africa’s (MTN SA) network availability remained under pressure due to ongoing power outages across the country: there were approximately 90 days of load shedding in Q1 2023 compared to 14 days in Q1 2022.”
On the Nigerian market, the group said-
“MTN Nigeria drove strong commercial momentum in a challenging operating environment to deliver a strong financial performance in the period.
“The Nigerian economy faced multiple challenges including higher inflation, interest rates, and difficulties with hard currency liquidity. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s decision to redesign additionally had an impact on it. As well as the introduction of the new naira notes starting from December 15, 2022. These factors had an impact on the overall economic situation in Nigeria. The limited availability of new notes resulted in cash shortages. This impacted customers’ ability to recharge through physical channels and transact within the MoMo agent network.”
cc: Punch Ng
