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Driven to secure financial inclusion across its markets, MTN Group continues to grow the number of MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) users on its network, a trend that has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By the end of September 2020, nearly 42 million people were regularly transacting on MTN MoMo across 16 markets. This compares to 38 million active users at the end of the first half of 2020, and 35 million at the end of 2019 – ten years after MTN launched MoMo.

Initially designed to facilitate the transfer of cash between mobile users, MTN’s MoMo offering is now much broader. The group works with numerous partners to offer services including loans, insurance, remittances and MoMo Pay, enabling customers to store money in their mobile wallets with which they can then pay for goods or services at registered merchants.

Mobile money services have grown faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world. In 2020, the trend has quickened, and the value of transactions has increased, partly supported by MTN’s reduction in MoMo transaction fees in many operations to assist customers battling the impacts of the pandemic.

In the first half of 2020, for example, the value of MTN MoMo transactions was US$61,2 billion, and the group processed 11 752 MoMo transactions a minute across its markets, up 28% from 9 193 transactions a minute in 2019.

The group remains committed to leveraging its technology to enable a cashless Africa.

For more on MTN’s work to extend financial inclusion, watch CNBC Africa at 17.30 CAT on Wednesday 25 November, when Yolanda Cuba, MTN Group’s chief digital and fintech officer, unpacks our plans.

MTN GlobalConnect is thrilled to announce that it was named the “Best African Wholesale Operator” at the prestigious Telecom Review Excellence Awards held in Dubai on Tuesday evening.

In addition, MTN GlobalConnect CEO Frédéric Schepens was presented with the “Leader Merit Award” in the category of Industry CEO of the Year for Wholesale Operators at the 14th edition of the industry publication’s awards. “

The MTN GlobalConnect team and I are humbled to win these awards,” said Frédéric. “In a year that has been challenging for everyone, the recognition fuels our mission to grow Africa by doing the work we do in infrastructure, supporting MTN’s belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.” Established in 2018, MTN GlobalConnect is based in Dubai and its team is made up of more than 25 nationalities.

MTN Group on Friday announced a strong set of financial results for the third quarter, supported by the performance of its larger operations in South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana, and good group-wide growth in subscriber numbers despite challenging trading conditions which have taken a toll on people everywhere.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to impact lives and livelihoods across our markets, the group has demonstrated strong operational execution and resilience,” said MTN Group president and chief executive officer Ralph Mupita.

To meet the increase in data and digital usage, he added that MTN had focused its investment on network capacity and resilience and modernising its IT systems, spending R16 billion in the year to the end of the third quarter.

Service revenue grew by 11,4% to more than R43 billion. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 13,9% and the group EBITDA margin widened by 1,4 percentage points to 43,3%, in line with medium-term targets.

“We recorded solid growth in voice revenue of 3,9%, which reflects an encouraging recovery supported by the easing of lockdown restrictions,” said Mupita. “Data revenue grew by 31,9%, bolstered by increased demand for work-from-home services, digital entertainment as well as online education offerings.”

The group also reported growth of 21,0% in fintech revenue and 37,5% in digital revenue, driven by the increased adoption and usage of digital offerings.

In the quarter, MTN added 12 million subscribers to reach a total of 273 million across 21 markets, as well as adding 5,3 million active data users to 107 million. In our work to enable greater financial inclusion, we reached a significant milestone by surpassing the 40 million MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) user mark, an addition of 3,5 million in the quarter to 41,8 million at end-September.

“Apart from greater adoption brought on by COVID-19, more people used MoMo because of enhancements to the functionality of the MoMo app, the large increase in registered MoMo agents, as well as the integration of MoMo into our instant messaging platform Ayoba in some of our markets,” said Mupita.

MTN South Africa performed particularly well, sustaining its turnaround, with an acceleration in its core consumer and enterprise business units. MTN Nigeria recorded a solid result with some recovery in revenue growth under difficult operating conditions, and MTN Ghana delivered another good performance.

As part of its asset realisation programme, MTN Group completed its exit from its 18,9% investment in e-commerce venture Jumia as well as the localisation of an 8% shareholding in MTN Zambia, realising net proceeds of approximately R2,3 billion and R204 million respectively.

Looking ahead, Mupita said the group remained focused on managing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on its staff, customers, networks and the balance sheet and liquidity profile of the group.  Through its Y’ello Hope initiative, it would continue to support those stakeholders who have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

“Despite the relaxation of lockdown restrictions, the operating environment remains challenging and uncertain. We will continue to build on our operational and financial resilience. We have now increased our full year forecast for capital expenditure to R26 billion, to ensure that our networks provide reliable connectivity and digital services to all of our 273 million-and-growing subscriber base,” he said.

MTN Group on Monday announced two important new appointments: that of chief executive officer of major subsidiary MTN Nigeria Communications Plc and that of MTN Group chief risk officer, a new group executive committee (exco) position. Both are effective from 1 March 2021.

Karl Toriola, current vice president for MTN Group’s West and Central Africa (WECA) region, will take over as MTN Nigeria CEO from Ferdi Moolman, who has served MTN Nigeria with distinction in this role for the past five years. Ferdi will return to South Africa, where he will assume the new role of group chief risk officer.

Karl has a BSc Hons in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and a MSc in Communication Systems. Ferdi has a BCom and BCompt. He is a CA(SA). Both will remain members of the group’s exco.

Ferdi Moolman appointed as the new MTN Group chief risk officer

Ferdi (57) joined MTN in 2002 and has held several senior positions within the group in Nigeria and in Iran. He has spent the past five years as the CEO of MTN Nigeria and, as its CFO prior to that. During that time, significant progress has been made in stabilising the business and setting it on a sustainable growth path.

The management of enterprise-wide risk is integral to MTN’s growth strategy and Ferdi will bring extensive operational and financial experience to the role given his deep knowledge of the MTN Group, its markets and the telecoms sector. Ferdi will remain on the board of MTN Nigeria and will in due course be appointed to other material subsidiary boards given his new group responsibility.

Karl Toriola appointed as the new MTN Nigeria CEO

In his five years as VP of MTN’s WECA region, Karl has overseen the steady progress of the operating companies in the region, notably the turnaround of MTN Ivory Coast and MTN Cameroon over the past two years.

In addition, the WECA markets have made significant commercial and strategic strides, including the improvement of market share and the development of mobile financial services. The latter in particular is an important driver of the group’s medium- to long-term growth strategy.

Since joining the group in 2006, Karl (48) has also held a number of senior operational roles at MTN, including chief technical officer of MTN Nigeria and CEO of MTN Cameroon. He is also a board member on a number of companies within the group, including MTN Nigeria. Karl’s successor as VP for WECA will be announced after the group strategy review is completed by the end of November 2020.

Exemplary leadership, extensive experience

“Karl brings extensive technical and commercial experience, as well as a deep understanding of the Nigeria market to the role,” commented MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita. “Karl started his MTN career in his home country at MTN Nigeria 14 years’ ago and has all the attributes necessary to lead this very important business into the future.”

 “Ferdi has been an exemplary leader of MTN Nigeria and has put the business on a sound growth platform for the future,” said Mupita. “He brings significant strategic, financial and operational experience to the new group risk role, where we want to ensure that our enterprise-wide risk management systems are continuously strengthened and remain resilient as we drive our growth strategy.”

MTN Group owns 78,8% of MTN Nigeria, which is listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and contributes around a third to the group’s service revenue.

MTN Group is pleased to announce that it has been named the most valuable African brand in the Brand Finance Africa 150 2020 ranking, which ascribes a brand value of US$3,3 billion to MTN.

Brand value is the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market.

In its survey, Brand Finance said: “Over the last year, Africa’s largest mobile operator has celebrated solid profits and impressive subscriber growth.”

The survey assessed the impact of COVID-19 on the enterprise value of all brands in its survey, compared to their values on 1 January 2020. It categorised the telecoms sector as ‘limited impact’, which it said meant “minimal brand value loss or potential brand value growth”. This was due to the increasingly important role that mobile operators have played in keeping people connected in the time of the pandemic.

In July, Brand Finance named MTN Group the most valuable South African brand, a result of the group’s focus on improving the customer experience for subscribers, as well as uniting 19 000 employees around a shared belief, which is that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.

MTN Group is pleased to announce the appointment of the new chief executive officer for MTN Liberia Lonestar Cell. Rahul De, the current Chief Marketing Officer of MTN Nigeria, will take the helm at the company on November 1, 2020. Rahul replaces Uche Ofodile who departed Lonestar Cell MTN in July to become the CEO of MTN Benin.

With 23 years of experience in the telco space, ranging across multiple geographies, Rahul has spent the last two decades in senior leadership roles driving growth and leading business transformation.

“I would like to congratulate Rahul on his appointment,” said MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita. “Rahul is a seasoned leader renowned for driving innovative digital and FinTech advancement in our business and in the telecommunications industry.”

Expressing appreciation for Rahul’s commitment and valued service, MTN Nigeria CEO, Ferdi Moolman said, “we thank Rahul for his unwavering dedication and commitment to ensuring that MTN Nigeria remains the market leader in our industry; and congratulate him on his new role. I know that he will continue to shine bright as he moves on from our immediate Y’ello family.”

During this tenure at MTN Nigeria, Rahul spearheaded the team that is driving digital transformation in the country, from a voice and data centric organisation to one which drives a digital and fintech future.

Rahul joined MTN in 2011 as Chief Marketing Officer of MTN Ghana, a position he held for over four years before he joined MTN Nigeria in 2015 as Chief Marketing Officer. He has an MBA in International Business and a bachelor’s degree in Science.

MTN Group and Telecom Infra Project (TIP) have joined forces to support the evolution of MTN’s communication transport infrastructure, which will become a platform for future revenue growth and profitability.

“Our partnership with TIP will drive the specific requirements of our network to meet our subscriber demands, setting us apart on our network scalability and adaptability,” says Charles Molapisi, MTN Group Chief Technology and Information Officer.

Through the partnership, communication transport capacity will be deployed to support traffic growth over the next three years. In addition, it will provide support for new services as part of the evolution of 5G and new enterprise services. It will also reduce the time to market through more focused agile service provisioning.

“Through the use of open protocols and interfaces, and the ability to incorporate specific innovations focused on the performance of each network component, TIP’s open disaggregated, standard-based transport networks can help MTN move closer to its ideal transport infrastructure,” says David Hutton, TIP’s Chief Engineer.

The TIP community, which aggregates members across the whole transport network value chain, is a key tool for MTN to build its future transport infrastructure.

To achieve the objective of increasing network efficiency, MTN has identified a set of requirements named CASSI that will support its work by:

MTN will work together with the TIP community in the months ahead to build transport products and network configurations addressing the company’s requirements, that could be tested and validated in TIP’s community labs and in the field, to create easy-to-use commercial solutions for the CASSI use cases.

MTN Group on Monday launched ‘global appreciation week’, encouraging employees to recognise their colleagues’ efforts – big or small – towards achieving the group’s vision, which is to lead the delivery of a bold, new digital world to our customers.

The aim is to make our 20 000 employees feel valued and connected, particularly important during COVID-19, when most employees are still working from home.

“Global appreciation week is an opportunity to show MTNers what they mean to us, recognising each person’s contribution to our values and vital behaviours, as well as our company performance,” said MTN Group chief human resources officer Paul Norman.

With a new theme every day this week, MTN employees are being urged to use the internal ‘MTN Shine’ peer-to-peer social recognition platform to send and receive messages to each other.

They are encouraged to celebrate the contribution of their co-workers to making the MTN brand and customer experience brighter; to recognise their colleagues’ ability to support other team members; to shine a spotlight on our people and their spirit leadership; as well as to acknowledge everyday heroes in the group who go to extraordinary lengths to care for MTN’s communities.

“With the emerging realities of the ‘new normal’ brought on by COVID-19, we recognise the need to rethink our employee value proposition. This begins with a deep sense of gratitude for all our MTNers who have always gone above and beyond to make us who we are,” said Paul.

“While appreciation and recognition are deeply embedded in our culture, ‘global appreciation week’ is that special time of the year when MTNers across the group come together to show their appreciation, kindness and gratitude for each other. We salute our people who made all of the successes this year possible,” he added.

MTN’s Global Sourcing and Supply Chain (GSSC) division, in partnership with Beroe and Espresso LiVE, will be hosting a live webinar on ‘Procurement digitalization in a post-pandemic world’ on Tuesday 8 September 2020. The session will highlight the importance of investing in procurement digitalization in uncertain times, brought about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supply chain and sourcing management across large organisations and geographies requires absolute accuracy, agility and constant innovation in order to adapt and evolve to meet the continually changing needs of the business.

Leading the way in digital transformation within supply chain management, MTN Group’s GSSC division has developed and successfully implemented several digitalization initiatives. These digital programmes are focused on combining a high-performance blend of automation with intelligence as well as business analytics with machine learning.

“Developed entirely in-house, GeSSiCa – our artificial intelligence assistant and our decision support application (DSA) – focuses on improving business efficiency and enhancing fact-based decision making. The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled us to work remotely and rely even more on technology than ever before,” says Dirk Karl, MTN group executive for procurement and supply chain management.

“Driven by our desire to take advantage of the digital acceleration shifts and opportunities across our markets, GeSSiCa and DSA are a visual representation of digital technologies in motion,” says Karl.

We have tangible examples of robotic process automation (RPA) in a number of use cases across the business. RPA is often referred to as software robotics, which is a form of business process automation technology based on metaphorical software robots or on artificial intelligence /digital workers.

Since her introduction, GeSSiCa has been hard at work automating time-consuming, administrative and repetitive tasks inherent within supply chain management. This gives GSSC staff the opportunity to focus more on strategic procurement and making better business decisions based on accurate data.

MTN Group’s DSA manages cross-functional decision making and combinatorial negotiations in complex multi-unit tenders. DSA enables MTN to move from several million scenarios into single digits with a complete paper trail, instantly.

With GeSSiCa and DSA, MTN’s GSSC has embarked on a journey towards digital transformation, resulting in a unique blend of automation that incorporates intelligence and business analytics. The future of work is here, delivered by a bold new digital world.

To join the webinar: 8 September 2020 at 4:00-5:00 CET/ 10:00 -11:00AM EST, https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4186107257776849419.

MTN today announces changes to the board of directors of MTN Group, as well as to the board of major subsidiary MTN South Africa.

After six years as an independent non-executive director of MTN Group – the last five as audit committee chairman – Christine Ramon will step down on 30 September to focus on her extended executive responsibilities.

Sindi Mabaso-Koyana will join the MTN Group board as an independent non-executive director on 1 September, assuming the chairmanship of the audit committee on 1 October.

Sindi is a chartered accountant with extensive experience in the public and private sectors, where she is held in high regard both locally and internationally. She has served as a non-executive director for numerous companies, and her current board positions include MTN Zakhele Futhi, AWCA Investment Holdings, Toyota SA and Phembani Group.

MTN Group chairman Mcebisi Jonas said: “Christine has played an invaluable role in ensuring the integrity of MTN’s corporate reporting, for which the board is grateful and wishes her well in her future endeavours. We also welcome Sindi, who the board believes to be a worthy successor in this critical role.”

Following the announcement in August of the appointment of group chief financial officer (GCFO) Ralph Mupita as the new group president and chief executive officer (GCEO) effective 1 September, outgoing GCEO Rob Shuter steps down from the board from this date. The board once again expresses its gratitude to Rob for his leadership and wishes him success in future.

The company continues with its rigorous recruitment process for the GCFO position, and in the interim the board has appointed Sugentharan Perumal as MTN Group’s acting GCFO. A chartered accountant for over 15 years, Sugen has extensive financial and accounting experience. He has served as an external auditor of MTN Group and held various key executive and board positions within the group. He is currently acting CFO of MTN South Africa and previously held the CFO position at MTN Irancell.

Finally, the group announces the appointment of Dineo Molefe as the CFO of MTN South Africa, effective 1 December 2020. Dineo is a chartered accountant and joins from T-Systems (South Africa), where she is CEO.

GCEO Ralph Mupita said: “The board is confident in the wide-ranging experience and knowledge of MTN that Sugen brings to the role. We also welcome Dineo to MTN South Africa, to which she brings a wealth of experience, having held a number of executive positions in the ICT, investment management and energy sectors. We wish both Sugen and Dineo well in their new roles.”