Q3 subscriber numbers

Righto, loads to get into, let us try and keep it brief and most importantly, let us try and make it informative. Firstly, MTN released a quarterly trading update, which at face value was a little disappointing at first glance. Subscriber growth of 0.9 percent quarter on quarter is not exactly the growth we are looking for. On further inspection, in Nigeria there were 5.1 million disconnections as a result of registration processes (the RICA headaches we had here), 3.4 million of those have subsequently been reconnected. Is there anything more irritating than not being able to use your cell phone? No, there isn't.


The overall South African base experienced good growth (It is now 29 million strong), 2 percent QoQ (quarter on quarter), Nigeria fell hard a percent on the same metric, as explained above. Nigeria, remember has 62.4 million of the overall group subscriber base of 233 million. In Iran the subscriber base grew 3 percent to 45 million. Wow! There are only two other territories with more than 10 million subscribers, namely Ghana (nearly 15.5 million) and Uganda with 11.5 million. What was perhaps the most pleasing for me was the pick up in ARPU's (Average Revenue per User), up 8.8 percent here in South Africa. What we are starting to see is smarter handsets consuming more data.


Data revenue locally (South Africa) increased 40 percent and now represents 31.5 percent of total local revenue! Meanwhile in Nigeria, it is only 21.3 percent of total revenue. In short, the story remains intact, and whilst the share price has been trading more as a proxy for the oil price (having large operations in Nigeria and Iran), we continue to hold and be patient here. At the close the stock had ended 2.32 percent higher, at 186 Rand. That is a long way away from the 52 week high of 250 Rand, we are acutely aware that investors lately have not enjoyed the gains of yesteryear. Stay the course.