MTN Uganda has announced a profit after tax (PAT) of UGX 181 billion for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025, representing a 20.6% year-on-year increase from UGX 150 billion in Q1 2024.
The result was underpinned by robust growth across its core service segments of voice, data and fintech, and saw the telco’s total service revenue rise to 13% year-on-year to UGX 841 billion from UGX 741 billion in the previous year within the period reported.
This growth was also supported by disciplined cost management, which lifted the telco’s Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) by 13.7% to UGX 444 billion from UGX 390 in the previous year, with margins improving to 52.4%.
Despite a lift on its EBITDA margin, the telco’s expenses rose to UGX 404 billion from 360 billion in the previous year.
Revenue segmentation
MTN’s voice segment revenue grew by 1.5% to UGX 320 billion from UGX 315 billion within the same period in the previous year.
The telco was impacted by lower inbound voice revenue following an interim industry-wide directive from last year relating to the reduction in mobile termination rates (MTR) from UGX 45 to UGX 26.
However, the reduced pricing resulted in a 16.5% uplift in the telco’s voice traffic due to increased adoption of our improved all-network bundles hence cushioning the impact of the MTR cuts.
This position was further consolidated by increased investment in network coverage and sustained momentum in customer acquisition, which increased MTN’s subscriber base by 2.9 million (up 14.6% YoY). This, in combination with rigorous customer value management (CVM), supported strong growth in outgoing voice.
However, voice revenue contribution to service revenue reduced by 4.5 percentage points to 38 percent in favour of data and fintech.
Data revenue accelerated by 32.5% to UGX 236 billion compared to UGX 178 billion in Q1 2024: 178 billion. The growth was driven by a 19.4% increase in active daily users to 10.2 million (1.7 million net additions) and a 12% rise in average megabyte per user, which together fueled a 33.7% jump in total data traffic.
The telco also recorded strong growth in home broadband offering speeds up to 500 Mbps at competitive prices. As a result, data’s share of service revenue climbed by 4 percentage points to 28%.
MTN Uganda has also started testing VoLTE, a high-speed wireless communication standard for voice calls and SMS to support enabled devices.
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Fintech revenue rose 18.4% to UGX 256 billion from UGX 216 million in Q1 2024. Mobile money services anchored the fintech growth at 19% to UGX 249.5 billion, while Xtra Time revenues dipped by 3% from UGX 6.2 billion to UGX 6.1 billion.
The ecosystem’s transaction volume expanded 19.9% to 1.2 billion transactions and transaction value climbed 23.9% to UGX 42.0 trillion. MTN Uganda also onboarded 212,044 active agents and 100,985 merchants. Advanced fintech services (loans, savings marketplace) surged 33.4%, lifting their share of fintech revenues to 34.1%, and fintech’s overall contribution to service revenue increased by 1.3 percentage points to 30.4%.
“Our disciplined approach to capital and cost management has enabled us to reduce net debt and sustain upper-teen service revenue growth, even as we continue to invest in our network and digital services,” MTN CEO, Sylvia Mulinge said.
Mulinge also noted that the telco’s investment of UGX 118.6 billion was focused on network densification to improve coverage and quality of service for clients.
During the quarter, MTN Group and Airtel Africa entered into network sharing agreements to maximize network infrastructure. These agreements are targeted at improving our network cost efficiencies, expanding our geographical coverage in line with the National Telecom Operator license requirement and addressing our customer user experience particularly in remote areas with less coverage.
MTN has also reported a drop in its net debt by 2.4% to UGX 1.12 trillion compared to UGX 1.24 trillion in the previous year.
Outlook
The telecom’s macroeconomic outlook is expected to trend positively, according to Bank of Uganda, with moderate inflation below 5% in the near term and a stable shilling supported by reforms in the interbank market.
MTN is also cognizant of external potential headwinds to its operation arising from uncertainties in the global markets in relation to global trade,which may also possibly affect global supply chains and increase the risk to our macro and business prospects.
“We remain vigilant to these developments and ensure that our operating model remains agile to respond. With this context, our focus this year is to continue executing our strategy while we ensure operational and financial resilience of our business,” Mulinge noted.
