Category: Media releases

MTN Group today released the second instalment of its brand refresh with the  ‘Voice’ brand film that highlights how a simple ingredient of life, in this case your voice, can impact and change the way people see the world, and inspire progress. 

In February, MTN launched its new logo and brand campaign to anchor its strategy, Ambition 2025, to build leading digital solutions that enable Africa’s progress across the telecom, fintech, infrastructure, API and content and messaging ecosystem.

The “What are we doing today?” campaign is driven by the insight that all progress comes from action and that the energy and optimism of Africa’s people together with MTN’s commitment to enabling Africa’s digital progress, will contribute to the progress of consumers, countries and ultimately, the African continent. 

Africa is a continent with significant potential and MTN is intent in playing its part in harnessing this potential by bringing relevant solutions to consumers that enable digital and financial inclusion and help them progress in their daily lives.

“Africa’s youth are at the core of this potential and progress, and our brand refresh centres on them as they hold the future in their hands. With the ‘Voice’ brand film, we hope to inspire in them that their voices matter, and to use the power of their voice to impact positive change and advance the progress of everyone on the continent,” said Bernice Samuels, Executive for Marketing.

As an extension of the release of the ‘Voice’ brand film, MTN Group has partnered with TBTM Studios to sponsor Season 3 of the ‘The Mic: Africa’ an interactive talent search programme aimed at empowering and uncovering talented youth across the continent. This production is an embodiment of MTN’s commitment to finding and giving “do-ers” from across Africa an opportunity to use their voice to respond to the invitation of ‘’What are we doing today?’’ The public will be able to view The Mic: Africa on the Premium Free TV app via ayoba, the Superapp, taking Africa by storm. 

MTN is looking forward to revealing the details of the involvement and association with this exciting production in the next few weeks.

MTN Group is pleased to announce the appointment of Riaan Wessels as Chief Risk Officer: Fintech with effect from 1 July 2022. 

Riaan has 13 years’ experience at MTN. He first joined the company in 2004, as General Manager: Business Risk Management and returned in 2017 as Group Executive: Risk and Compliance.

“As Chief Risk Officer: Fintech, Riaan will continue to add immense value at MTN by effectively managing risk exposures to the business and ensuring robust processes and controls,” said Serigne Dioum, Group Chief Fintech Officer.

Over the past 20 years, Riaan has implemented complex programmes at multinational companies in the technology and telecommunications industries. This includes leading large risk management, compliance and internal audit teams across operating environments in the Middle East and Africa.

Riaan holds a BComm Honours degree from the University of Free State in Accounting, Auditing and Tax and a Postgraduate diploma in Business Leadership from GIBS.

He is also a Board member of MTN Rwanda and MTN Côte d’Ivoire as well as Member and Chairman of the Board of MTN Guinea Conakry

MTN Group is pleased to announce the appointment of Andrew Goodrich as Executive for Banktech in our Group Fintech team, effective, 1 June 2022.    

Andrew joined MTN in 2019 as a General Manager for Banktech & Beyond Payments division, where he has added immense value in executing our digital banking strategy.

“We are delighted to welcome Andrew into his new role within the Group Fintech Team. Andrew is no stranger to MTN and his wealth of experience in the financial sector, will ensure we continue to make a meaningful contribution, as we drive our financial inclusion ambitions on the continent.” said Serigne Dioum, Group Chief Fintech Officer.

“Andrew has 30 years’ experience in the financial services sector, twelve of which were spent at senior leadership level. Andrew has built a stellar career through his innate ability to craft an organisational vision, mobilise strategic and tactical plans, and execute with well-led and highly effective teams. He is a strategic yet practical leader, renowned for his hands-on approach to business”, concluded Dioum.

Prior to joining MTN, Andrew was involved in a number of start-ups. This includes a niche credit risk solutions consultancy, which was successful in assisting several start-ups in South Africa (SA), as well as an e-commerce and digital credit provider and numerous Fintech/ Finserv businesses throughout South Africa, Africa, and Asia.

We congratulate Andrew and wish him the very best in his new role.

MTN Group is pleased to announce the resumption of its Y’ello Care employee volunteering programme after two years of Covid-19. The annual event aims to secure high participation levels of MTN staff in high impact social projects to uplift and empower the local communities in which the company operates. 

The programme, kicking off on 1 June until the 21^st, is themed “Empowering Communities to Drive Economic Recovery”. The aim is to inspire MTNers to heed the call to upskill local communities in order to drive economic activity and participation through focusing on digital skills training and digital job creation. This is linked to MTN’s strategic priority to build digital skills for digital jobs aligned to the company’s Ambition 2025 Strategy. 

“As MTNers it is imperative that we continue to contribute to our societies and ensure that the communities in which we operate see the value of the business in their lives,” MTN Group Chief Sustainability & Corporate Affairs Officer Nompilo Morafo said. 

MTN is committed to adding economic value by contributing to society through its programmes focused on digital education, digital skills and digital skills training. The company believes that reducing the digital skills gap will help address issues of digital and social inequalities while at the same time ensuring the sustainability of the business. 

“With a new strategic focus on digital skills for digital jobs, kicking off our Y’ello Care initiatives by focusing on empowering communities to drive economic recovery after Covid-19 through training, upskilling, and knowledge sharing will create lasting and sustainable change. Working with women, youth, disadvantaged populations, and people at risk will help uplift our communities and will add value to the work done in 2019, while pathing the way for new opportunities under this new strategic direction,” Morafo added. 

At MTN, we believe that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connect life and by resuming our Y’ello Care campaign, we strive to ensure that we continue to strengthen and uplift all of our community members in their pursual of economic development within each community.

IHS Holding Limited (NYSE: IHS) (“IHS Towers”), one of the largest independent owners, operators, and developers of shared communications infrastructure in the world by tower count, has completed the acquisition of 5,701 towers in South Africa from Mobile Telephone Networks Proprietary Limited (“MTN SA”), one of the leading mobile telecommunications operators in South Africa (the “Transaction”). Under the agreement, IHS Towers is also providing Power Management Services to MTN SA on approximately 13,000 sites, including the acquisition portfolio, across South Africa.

Cash consideration for the Transaction is ZAR6.4 billion[1]. The acquired assets as well as the provision of Power Management Services across MTN SA’s portfolio are expected to deliver Revenue and Adjusted EBITDA of approximately US$192 million and US$85 million, respectively, in the first full year of operations.[2] This transaction has received the necessary regulatory approval from the South African Competition Commission.

The Power Management Services component of the transaction is aligned to IHS Towers’ existing service offering in other African markets – this service will be delivered to the acquired sites, as well as to other third-party sites on which MTN SA is present. This service will primarily involve power systems and security at sites.

IHS Towers will own 70% of the South African Towers business with the remaining 30% to be owned by a B-BBEE consortium.

With this acquisition, IHS now has an operational footprint in eleven emerging markets with seven in Africa, in addition to four in Latin America and the Middle East, with a global tower count of nearly 39,000 towers.

Sam Darwish, IHS Towers Chairman and CEO, commented “The closure of this acquisition is an important milestone in IHS’ growth story. IHS was founded in Africa and the region continues to be a key anchor for our company. Through this transaction, IHS has now entered the most industrialised economy in Africa as South Africa’s largest independent tower operator. MTN Group have been a long-term partner of IHS, and I am delighted that we will expand that collaboration and facilitate mobile connectivity in South Africa. We will leverage our deep operational excellence and engineering expertise, honed across our other African markets, to meet South Africa’s increasingly sophisticated data demands and expedite the roll-out of new technologies.”

Ralph Mupita, MTN Group President and CEO commented “With the regulatory approvals and all conditions precedent to the deal finalised, we are pleased to have IHS bring global capabilities to our South Africa network. Additionally, with this deal, we continue to deliver on our Asset Realisation Programme, strengthening the balance sheet and improving returns.”

“Over the years, MTN SA has built and maintained the best network in the country, and we believe that in IHS, we have found a partner with the necessary experience and expertise to maintain and enhance this critical part of the business. This international partnership also brings foreign investment into the market to create greater competition,” added Charles Molapisi, MTN SA CEO.

[1] On a cash and debt free basis, excludes IFRS 16 lease liabilities estimated to be ZAR4.6 billion.

[2] 12-month Revenue and Adjusted EBITDA annualized for FY 2022 outlook. Revenue includes power pass through on acquired sites that will take time to materialise in our revenue. Note that revenue has been adjusted down when compared to our initial announcement last November as we will only be providing power pass through on the towers being acquired, and not on those owned by third parties.

MTN Group is pleased to announce the appointment of Tumi Chamayou as Group Executive:  Enterprise Business Unit (GEBU), effective 1 June 2022.

Tumi joined the GEBU team in 2018, as General Manager for Large Enterprise Sales, and has been Acting Executive for the function since July 2020, until now. During this time, she has added immense value, overseeing client segment teams as well as the overall strategy and operational alignment with EBU teams in MTN’s Opcos.

Jens Schulte-Bockum, Group Chief Operating Executive said, “Tumi has the expertise and track record to assist in bolstering the leadership capability of MTN Group. Critical to the realisation of our strategic imperatives is an integrated, synergistic, and collaborative leadership team whose core values and mindset are aligned with the company’s strategy. We look forward to working with Tumi in her new role”.

Tumi is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in technology, telecommunications, and management consulting. Prior to joining MTN, she held various senior leadership roles at Ericsson, Egon Zehnder, Accenture and Decipher.

Tumi holds an MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

MTN Group, with operations in 17 countries across Africa, has been ranked the number one African brand and among the top 10 brands on the continent in the annual Brand Africa 100 survey.

At a ceremony in Lagos to mark Africa Day on Wednesday 25 May 2022, Brand Africa said that MTN was the #1 African brand in both the spontaneous recall (where respondents are asked to name a brand across any category and region) and prompted recall (where respondents are guided to recall an African brand) rankings. This is the first time MTN has scooped both awards.

MTN was also named the highest-ranking telecoms brand on the continent.

“We are humbled by the recognition and remain focused on playing a leading role in building a more digitally inclusive society across Africa,” said MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita. “Using our brand power, distribution footprint and best-in-class connectivity infrastructure, we are working to facilitate a real change in the continent’s digital and financial inclusion.”

“Sincere thanks to our customers, MTNers, and all other important stakeholders for your ongoing support, ” he added.

The Brand Africa awards came at the same time as the release of Brand Finance’ Africa 150 2022 report, which showed that MTN had retained its position as the most valuable African brand. Assigning MTN a brand value of US$4.0 billion, up 49%, it said: “Apart from telecommunications, the leading brand has diversified its services into fintech and mobile money across Africa. MTN’s Mobile Money (MoMo) application is performing exceedingly well and overtook its competition.”

As part of MTN’s refreshed strategy – Ambition 2025: Leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress – early in 2022 MTN overhauled its brand. It has a new visual identity, which is modern, simple, bold and digitally dynamic, challenging consumers to act today to enjoy the benefits of progress tomorrow with its “what are we doing today campaign”.

MTN Group Executive for Marketing Bernice Samuels said it was pleasing to see the resurgence that African brands had made in the rankings in 2022 and called the MTN awards heartening: “They encourage us to work harder to deliver on our purpose of enabling the benefits of a modern connected life to everyone.”

Mupita concurred, thanking MTN’s many stakeholders across the continent for their support: “In particular, I would like to thank our 276 million subscribers and 16 390 employees for ensuring that MTN remains the top African brand.”

MTN Group is pleased to announce that we have joined the Global Network Initiative (GNI), signalling our commitment to strengthen and innovate our digital human rights efforts.

The GNI is a multi-stakeholder organisation whose mission is to protect and advance freedom of expression, privacy, and other key digital human rights by setting a global standard for responsible decision-making for companies across the information and telecommunications sector.

“Our commitment to digital human rights is an integral part of our business strategy and sustainability framework and is embedded in the highest levels of our governance structures. This membership is one example of our commitment to continuously evolve and innovate our approach in addressing human rights risk and the way we conduct our business,” says MTN Group Chief Sustainability and Corporate Affairs Officer Nompilo Morafo.

“We believe that digital and financial inclusion cannot be achieved without deliberate efforts to respect the rights of all. MTN’s GNI membership allows us to explore new ways of safeguarding the rights of our customers and other stakeholders using the power of collective learning and collaboration with multiple stakeholders,” she adds.

GNI members commit to implementing the GNI Principles, which are based on internationally recognised laws and standards for human rights, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The GNI Principles, along with the GNI and Implementation Guidelines, provide a framework for responsible company decision-making in support of freedom of expression and privacy rights.

“GNI and its 90 members will greatly benefit from MTN’s perspective, and we are particularly pleased to be continuing to expand into new geographies. We look forward to working with MTN to help protect the human rights of its customers and stakeholders,” said GNI Executive Director Jason Pielemeier.

The GNI regularly facilitates opportunities for members to contribute to shared learning and provides a forum for collective advocacy with governments and other key stakeholders in support of laws and policies that promote and protect freedom of expression and privacy.

MTN’s digital human rights framework adopts a pragmatic approach to systematically entrench digital human rights across the Group. Implementing the GNI Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy will further strengthen our approach.

As MTN Group, we have reached a major milestone in our work to create shared value by achieving, for the first time, Level 1 Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Contributor Status in South Africa.

The rating is for the financial year ended 31 December 2021 and is an improvement on the Level 2 Contributor Status for 2020. It is contained in the Group’s annual B-BBEE compliance report, released today, in which major subsidiary MTN South Africa (MTN SA) retained its Level 1 B-BBEE Contributor Status for the third year running.

The B-BBEE Contributor Status for MTN Group considers both the South African operating entities as well as the South African Group function.

“We are very pleased by the progress we are making as the MTN Group in driving broad-based transformation. The achievement of the Level 1 Contributor Status for both our Group and our South African operation is a truly major milestone,” said MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita. “As MTN Group, we see broad-based transformation and making socio-economic contributions to the markets we operate in as key to our sustainability and creating shared value.”

Notable improvements for the Group were 4.5-point increase in our Management Control score. This resulted from our consistent alignment to the targets based on the Economically Active Population as well as from changes in the composition of the Board of Directors, with the appointment of more women. Our Equity Ownership score improved by 0.94 points as we maximised the Designated Group sub-indicator.

Mupita said MTN would continue to work to contribute meaningfully to South Africa’s socio-economic transformation, prioritising Enterprise and Supplier Development and Skills Development in 2022. This includes supporting several learnership programmes, which he said was particularly critical at a time of rising unemployment.

MTN SA CEO Charles Molapisi concurred: “In an environment of mounting economic challenges, we are pleased to be able to help create meaningful opportunities for South Africans. In 2022 we will work harder to provide a world-class Enterprise and Supplier Development Programme to deliver more sustainable solutions that are aligned to government’s efforts to speed up the inclusion of Black-Owned Business in the mainstream economy.”

MTN Group has linked the remuneration of senior executives with the Group’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets. This supports the delivery of our Ambition 2025 strategy, and in particular the strategic priority to ‘create shared value’, with ‘ESG at the core’.

The variable elements of executive compensation – both short-term incentives (STIs) and long-term incentives (LTIs) – now depend on progress on three ESG goals: reaching Net Zero; enhancing diversity and inclusion; and extending rural broadband.

“Effectively managing our environmental, social and governance impacts is critical to reaching Ambition 2025,” said MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita in the Group’s recently released Sustainability Report.

“We have made great progress overall and continually strive to meet the increasingly high standards our stakeholders demand regarding our ESG impact. To this end, we have linked 2022 executive renumeration for STIs and LTIs to ESG.”

In March, MTN Group’s 2021 results showed a 16% reduction in scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions; an increase in the representation of women across the Group to 39%; and an increase to 83% in rural broadband coverage.

MTN is committed to reducing scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 47% by 2030 and reaching Net Zero by 2040; achieving workforce gender equality by 2030; and extending rural broadband coverage to 95% by 2025.

MTN’s strategic intent is ‘Ambition 2025: Leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress’. In 2021, we took a step change in our approach to ESG, placing it at the core of our strategy. This aligns with our work to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through our business activities and our support of governments, communities and customers. We are committed to bridging the digital divide and furthering financial inclusion to advance the attainment of the goals.