MTN South Africa Earnings declined sharply through December 2025 as increasing competition in the prepaid market and rising bad loans weighed on the business, while the enterprise and post-paid segments delivered solid growth.
Local operations reported a 10.1% decline in EBITDA (excluding the impact of tower sales) to R17.7 billion, with margins declining 2.8 percentage points to 34.6%. Services revenue rose only 2% to R44-billion.
The results are in sharp contrast to the wider MTN Group, which delivered service revenue growth of 22.7% in constant currency to R218.5 billion due to strong performance in Nigeria and Ghana.
The main bottleneck was the prepaid segment of MTN South Africa. Prepaid subscribers fell 0.7% to 29.7 million, while consumer prepaid service revenue declined 2.3% year over year, with the contraction widening to 3.9% in the fourth quarter as competitive intensity increased toward the end of the year.
Voice revenue fell 4.2% for the full year and 8% in the fourth quarter, reflecting broader pressure in the prepaid base and the ongoing shift toward VoIP services.
Fintech revenues declined 8.4%, mainly due to a slowdown in overtime activity due to a decline in recharge volumes. This was partially offset by growth in the MOMO (mobile money) portfolio, supported by momentum in insurance technology-related services.
different picture
Digital services revenues also declined, falling 3.2% due to lower prepaid recharge activity and softer content VAS and rich media services revenues, although mobile advertising continued to grow in double digits.
The impact of MTN Group's share price movement resulted in an additional 1.2 per cent loss in Ebitda margin. MTN South Africa Staff share scheme. Increased bad debts from telesales and on-biller channels also weighed on the results.
The post-paid and enterprise segments painted a markedly different picture. Post-paid subscribers grew 7.6% to 4.6 million due to demand for integrated voice and data plans, price adjustments effective from February 1, 2025, device-based offers and new device-financing models.
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Consumer post-paid service revenue increased 4.4%, bringing the growth rate to 5.5% in the fourth quarter.
Services revenue grew 13.6% and momentum grew 14.4% in the fourth quarter, with the enterprise business being the standout performer. Growth was driven by demand for core mobile enterprise solutions, bulk SMS, connectivity services and aggregated offerings.
Data revenue grew 4.5% for the full year, although the pace slowed to 3.2% in the fourth quarter amid rising pricing pressure. Data traffic increased by 27.3%, with average monthly usage per active postpaid data customer increasing by 18% to 26.5GB. Prepaid data usage increased by 28.4% to 4.2GB/month.
Wholesale revenues increased 2.5% with growth in mobile and fixed access data offset by a decline in wholesale SMS, interconnect and BTS revenues.
MTN South Africa's challenges were compounded by a sluggish economy. The company said it is targeting medium-term service revenue growth in the “low to mid-single digits” range and EBITDA margin between 35% to 37%.
The company said it is making interventions to improve prepaid performance, including refined regional offers, personalized bundle pricing and channel optimization.
The home connectivity segment – which includes fixed-wireless access and fiber to the home – is expected to remain a growth driver, while the company is also pursuing network-sharing partnerships and initiatives to reduce bad debts in third-party channels.
Capital expenditure for MTN South Africa based on the IFRS 16 report totaled R8.4 billion, or R6.8 billion excluding leases, down from R9.8 billion (ex-lease) in the previous year. — (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
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