MTN subscriber numbers now top 170 million

MTN produced subscriber numbers on Friday, and finally there was good news for only I guess the second time this year for the stock, or so it seems anyhow. These are numbers for the first quarter to end March. And the number is, (drum roll), 170 573 000. That is right, 170 and a half million people, which is now more than the population of Nigeria. Only just, because the Wiki listed population of Nigeria is 170,123,740 folks, which is the worlds seventh most populous country. Nigeria in fact, in these numbers, is 25.1 percent of the overall MTN subscriber base. So, without thinking too hard, one in four Nigerians on are the MTN network, 42.899 million folks. The next biggest market for them is Iran (where MTN has a 49 percent stake in Irancell), which has 36.831 million subscribers. Next is South Africa, 22.735 million subscribers. Together, these three markets make up 60 percent of the overall MTN subscriber base. The only other country with more than 10 million subscribers is Ghana with 10.394 million subscribers.

Only three of their territories saw their respective subscriber bases contract were Guinea-Conakry, Congo - Brazzaville and Syria. MTN describes the Syrian business as follows: "Its performance continued to be hampered by civil unrest in the country, which resulted in a reduction of subscriber numbers of 23 000 subscribers and a decline in local currency ARPU of 8,5%." Hampered? The place is as close to a disaster as you get, it is quite surprising that it is still OK, relatively speaking. Notwithstanding that, MTN still expect to add 450 thousand subscribers in Syria for the year. In fact, in total MTN are expecting to add 21.3 million subscribers.

All ARPU's (Average Revenue per users) across the board fell, blended ARPU's in South Africa are 123.5 Rands per month. Or roughly 15.83 Dollars per subscriber, blended of course. In the pre paid market in South Africa, the ARPU is 93.2 Rands, or 11.94 Dollars per user, which is still a lot more than our African counterparts. Here goes, Nigeria is the highest at 9.4 Dollars per user per month, Iran 7.5 USD, Ghana 6.6 USD, Syria at 10.4 USD whilst some of the lower ARPU's in MTN's operations not unsurprisingly come from Afghanistan (4.5 USD), Zambia (4.4 USD) and Rwanda (3.8 USD). I think that notwithstanding that economic progress has been made in all of the countries that MTN do business in. OK, perhaps Swaziland and Syria for the time being are exceptions, Swaziland has a long road to travel.

Cyprus with a subscriber base of only 283 thousand folks (population estimate 834 thousand people on the Cyprus part) has ARPU's of 27 USD per user, a fall of 16.4 percent in Rands and 11.2 percent in local currency. Uganda saw a significant jump in ARPU, but again, it is just less than 4 USD. The MTN subscriber base is by in large in relatively poor countries that are growing their economies quickly, but that does not detract from the fact that ARPU's are still shrinking. As more marginal users are added to the network, ARPU's will continue to decline. And greater competition will continue to see lower ARPU's.

MTN data revenue (which includes SMS) is 14.4 percent of total revenue, mostly South Africa though. MTN Mobile Money at the end of the period had 6.2 million subscribers and is now active in 13 of their territories. Mobile payment systems are going to become increasingly important as societies trend towards less cash based payment systems. The stock rallied in the face of a weakening market after these numbers, quite clearly Mr. Market enjoyed this release. MTN closed at its best level in over a month, at 136.68, up 1.62 percent.