Nigeria is MTN’s most profitable market with 41.7% revenue growth in Q1’26

The Nigerian market has retained its spot as MTN Group’s most profitable market among its 16 African markets, following a 41.7% surge in service revenue in Q1 2026. 

The outcome means that the Nigerian market builds on its robust earnings turnaround in 2025, when it reported a profit after tax of N1.1 trillion, driven by service revenue.

In Q1 2026, MTN Nigeria recorded N355.5 billion in profit, with the growth edging other top African markets of the company. 

In other markets, MTN Ghana’s service revenue grew 35.7% while MTN Cameroon and MTN Côte d’Ivoire increased service revenues by 14.4% and 18.3%, respectively.

For the group, the result in these markets translates to a favourable exchange rate following turbulent economic conditions experienced between late 2023 and early 2025. The group is also using increased investment to capture the surge in subscriber base and data usage.

However, market forces and intense competition in the prepaid services had further shifted gains in its South African business. Service revenue growth only increased by 0.7% during the quarter, following a 2% growth for the entire 2025. 

Despite the growth claims that the market is fighting its way back, competition in the prepaid business from the likes of Vodacom, Telkom, Rain and Cell C continues to push MTN to the edge.

MTN overall earnings 

The MTN group saw its service revenue increase by 21.1%, fueled by a strong market performance in Nigeria and revenue from mobile data. For most telcos, data revenue has been a key driver of earnings, revealing the continued demand for data and how Africans continue to penetrate the internet space.

The group’s active data users grew by 8.7% to 175.6 million, with the growth impacting the overall subscriber base, which increased by 5.4% to 312.7 million. With a 3.3 percentage point difference, it shows a clear shape of how fast internet usage is growing compared to overall subscribers.

To mention, the active data users had now fueled the telco’s network to 7,826 petabytes, a 20.2% increase over the same period in 2025.

In other results, Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 27.9%, outpacing its revenue growth. This was attributed to continued focus on expense efficiencies. With this, the group’s EBITDA margin was widened by three percentage points to 47.6%.

Across its markets, MTN spent $580.4 million to purchase infrastructure such as towers and fibre optic cables during the quarter. Particularly, the telco said the capital expenditure helped sustain the surge in subscribers in performing markets like Nigeria and Ghana. 

Also, Voice revenue expanded by 1.3%, largely attributed to subscriber growth and customer value management initiatives in key markets.

Also Read: MTN, Airtel, Glo, others recorded 500 weekly fibre cuts in Q1 2026.

Fintech 

The group’s Mobile Money operation (MoMo) saw its monthly active users increase to 67.4 million, showing that only 21.6% of the group’s subscribers are on its mobile money operations.

On a competitive note, MTN’s mobile money customers are 13.3 million more than Airtel Africa’s mobile money customer base as of Q1 2026.

In the same light, MTN’s fintech revenues increased by 22.4%, driven by 15.8% higher transaction volumes and values increasing by 32.8% to $163 billion (R2.69 trillion). 

However, MTN’s fintech is expected to witness a significant turnaround in operation following moves to separate the services from core telecom operations. The structural separation forms an attempt to strategically focus on an ecosystem that has seen massive growth in Africa.

MTN Ghana was the first market to announce the completed structural separation of its fintech business on 30 March 2026, while the separation is ongoing in Nigeria and Uganda. In Nigeria, shareholders recently voted in favour of the separation of MoMo Payment Services Bank and Y’ello Digital Financial Services. 

Looking forward 

The landmark acquisition of IHS Towers has been tipped to position the group for an added value advantage. It’s believed that the deal will strengthen MTN’s digital infrastructure position in Africa by buying back the towers it leased to the tower management company years ago. 

While the acquisition is expected to be finalised by December 2026, MTN said it’s monitoring the Middle East war coupled with its impact on oil prices, exchange rate at local markets and inflation.

With markets at risk of market tensions, the group is looking towards its capital allocation framework and expense efficiency programme to serve as a situational control should any complexity arise.