MTN Group delivered impressive financial and operational achievements for 2025, boosted by strong performances in MTN Nigeria and MTN Ghana, as well as solid earnings from MTN South Africa.
The three core markets of Africa's largest mobile provider enhanced profitability, free cash flow, and shareholder dividends by 45%.
MTN Group CEO and President Ralph Mupita highlighted that the telecoms giant's robust commercial momentum across key markets capped the final year of its Ambition 2025 strategy, while laying the foundation for a new long-term growth phase under Ambition 2030.
“The Group’s overall performance in 2025 was excellent. In the final year of our Ambition 2025 strategy, we were proud to have exceeded the 300 million customers milestone,” he said.
MTN revealed that it now serves more than 307 million voice subscribers, 172 million data users, and 70 million Mobile Money customers across 16 African markets, reflecting the continent's growing demand for digital connectivity and financial services.
The operator credited its results to disciplined commercial execution and sustained investment in network infrastructure, with R38 billion spent during the year to expand capacity, improve coverage and enhance service quality.
The group reported that data traffic surged 27%, while average monthly data consumption per user climbed to 12.5GB, up from 10.8GB a year earlier, reflecting Africa’s fast-growing appetite for digital services.
Financially, the performance was driven by MTN’s largest markets.
In constant currency terms, MTN Nigeria grew service revenue by 54.9%, while MTN Ghana increased service revenue by 35.9%.
Meanwhile, MTN South Africa recorded 2% growth, demonstrating operational resilience in one of the continent’s most mature and competitive telecom markets.
MTN Group service revenue rose nearly a quarter to R218 billion, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation climbed to R98.5 billion, supported by R3.6 billion in expense efficiencies.
Mupita stressed that the strong results translated into robust free cash flow and improved return generation, allowing the board to declare a dividend of 500 cents per share, up from 345 cents the previous year.
“This comfortably exceeds the minimum dividend of 370 cents we had previously guided,” he said.
The group also announced a R6 billion share buyback programme as part of an enhanced shareholder remuneration framework aimed at delivering stronger long-term returns.
Alongside its results, MTN unveiled Ambition 2030, a strategy centred on three platforms, connectivity, fintech and digital infrastructure, as it seeks to capture the next wave of growth driven by data adoption and financial inclusion across Africa.
“We are hugely excited about Africa’s potential. We are well positioned to leverage our scale, footprint and brand leadership to capture the significant structural growth opportunities identified,” said Mupita.
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