by Tech Talk | Feb 23, 2023 | Articles
MTN South Africa is increasing its consumer post-paid subscription fees by an average of 5.1%, blaming a “challenging market environment” for the need to push through the price hikes.
The new prices will come into effect on 1 April.
“The impact of the inflationary environment has resulted in increased input costs, driven by load shedding and rising fuel usage, which has been further aggravated by ongoing battery theft and vandalism,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
Describing the increases as “unavoidable”, MTN said it will continue to invest in its network, including in battery roll-out to mitigate against the impact of load shedding.
“In some instances, the actual subscription fee increase may be higher than the average of 5.1%, with a maximum of 7.4%. This mainly represents a R10 increase from R135 to R145 on our Mega XS price plans,” MTN said.
Voice call rates per minute will also be increased on average by 4%, or a maximum of 10c/minute. Out-of-bundle data and SMS rates have been reduced to 25c/MB and 35c/message, respectively.
Instalments on handsets and other devices as part of contract deals will not be affected by the increase.
“We want to assure customers we are working very hard to build the resilience of our network with batteries and generators and added security to guard against theft and vandalism,” the company said.
Details about all of the adjusted prices are included in the MTN-supplied table below. –NewsCentral Media
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by Tech Talk | Nov 23, 2022 | Articles
MTN says that a fault developed on its network after an upgrade, causing intermittent outages for data customers on Tuesday.
“Following an upgrade on a part of the MTN network last night, a fault developed this morning, resulting in some intermittent connectivity issues today,” MTN stated.
“The fault has been repaired and MTN apologises to any customers that may have been inconvenienced by this matter.”
From around 07:00 on 22 November, MTN subscribers started reporting that they could not access the Internet on the operator’s mobile and fixed-LTE networks.
Real-time problem and outage monitoring site Downdetector showed
elevated levels of complaints until around 15:00.
Problem reports dropped off sharply from 15:15 and remained relatively high at 19:00.
Some ongoing complaints include customers who use MVNO services on MTN’s network, like Afrihost Air Mobile and Axxess.
“Any update on hosted LTE networks e.g. Afrihost? MTN mobile working fine but Afrihost LTE connected w/o Internet…” one person said on Twitter.
Afrihost’s network status page said that as of 18:16, MTN engineers were still working on resolving the outage.
Axxess’s network status page also indicated that the outage had not yet been fully resolved.
“Just signed my contract with MTN today and this certainly leaves a bitter taste. Still NO network in my area,” another Twitter user said.
“Literally lost business during this outage! Poor poor service MTN,” saidanother.
This incident is at least the third major outage MTN suffered in the past four months.
On 4 August 2022, the operator’s data network went down in the Free State and Western Cape provinces for over nine hours.
On 12 October 2022, the MTN data network was slow or offline for users across the country for around three hours.
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by Tech Talk | Nov 7, 2022 | Articles
MTN Group is selling its Afghanistan business to Beirut-based M1 New Ventures for US$35-million (R640-million) as Africa’s largest wireless carrier continues to reduce its presence outside the continent.
The Johannesburg-based company announced the deal on Friday alongside its third quarter results. The M1 Group is owned by Lebanon’s Mikati family, who sold Middle East assets to the South African company in 2006, when MTN was seeking to expand in the region.
MTN shares rose as much as 5.2% in early trade in Johannesburg, paring year-to-date losses to 20%.
The wireless carrier has been narrowing focus on its home continent since 2020, targeting high growth areas such as data sales and mobile money. The group abandoned its Syrian business and transferred its Yemen unit to a partner. Operating in Afghanistan, where MTN is the biggest operator with about a 40% market share, has been complicated since the US withdrawal in August 2021. MTN remains present in Iran.
Separately, MTN said it’s advancing talks with strategic investors to buy a stake in its fintech unit. The talks are moving towards a binding-offer stage, and MTN expects outcomes by the first quarter of next year.
Customers at the fintech business increased by 23.3% to 63 million in the third quarter from a year earlier, with transaction volumes up by a third to 9.5 billion.
“In the near term, revenue growth has been impacted by new taxes in a few markets, but we continue to see the case for structural and compelling growth for fintech services in the medium term that will deepen financial inclusion across Africa,” said MTN CEO Ralph Mupita.
In South Africa, where the carrier recently ended talks to acquire Telkom, the company’s subscribers increased by more than 800 000 to 35.9 million. Group-wide, subscribers rose to 285 million.
MTN said it has repatriated R13-billion from overseas operations so far this year. — Bloomberg
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by Tech Talk | Nov 7, 2022 | Articles
MTN Group’s third quarter pre-tax profit rose 14.7% year on year, supported by demand for its data and financial services.
MTN, with 285 million customers in 19 countries in Africa and the Middle East, said group service revenue grew to R49.6-billion for the period ended 30 September 2022, compared to R43 billion reported a year ago.
That was supported by a 33.2% increase in data revenue, with active data users increasing by 14.9% to 135.4 million. Fintech revenue grew 12.9% as active monthly users of mobile money services climbed 23.3% year on year and volumes processed by its fintech platform rose 32.7% to 9.5 billion transactions.
Mobile phone operators like MTN have been pushing into financial services on the African continent, where a large part of the population does not have good access to traditional banking services.
However, group CEO Ralph Mupita said macroeconomic, geopolitical and regulatory conditions had put pressure on the company’s financial results.
“The rise in energy, food prices and general inflation, as well as interest rates, continued to put pressure on consumers and our business,” he said, adding that operating margins were further constrained by weakening local currencies and the limited availability of dollars in some markets where it operates.
“We anticipate inflationary pressures and foreign currency volatility to remain challenging for our customers, supply chains and our business in the final quarter of 2022.”
Voice revenue, its biggest service revenue generator, rose 2.7% as financially constrained consumers in South Africa substituted voice calls with data calls. — Reuters
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by Tech Talk | Oct 24, 2022 | Articles
Nigeria’s telecommunications regulator ordered mobile telecommunication companies to reverse a 10% tariff hike that was meant to cover rising costs.
The Nigerian Communications Commission said in an emailed statement that its board didn’t approve the increase, which had been initially agreed with the companies.
“As a result, it is reversed,” it said.
Wireless service providers in the West African nation are facing increased operating costs, with inflation accelerating to a 17-year high of 20.8% in September.
Cost pressure has been compounded by a weakening currency and more than a 200% jump in the price of diesel, which is required to power towers across the country due to the poor power supply.
MTN Nigeria is the biggest wireless operator in Africa’s most populous nation, while Airtel Africa Plc, which listed in Lagos and London in 2019, vies with local operator Globacom Ltd. for the No. 2 slot.
The regulator said that it had forced the reversal of a proposed 5% tax on telecommunication services earlier this year, “in order to maintain a conducive enabling environment for the telecom operators.”
The government’s priority is “to protect the citizens,” and “anything that will bring more hardship at this critical time will not be accepted,” it said in its statement.
Rising living costs are a key issue in the country as it gears up for national elections in February next year.
The ruling party faces stiff competition from the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party, whose candidate has emerged as the frontrunner in three seperate opinion polls.
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