Africa’s largest mobile operator, MTN, is planning to exit the Middle East to focus more on the continent, with its first move to sell off its 75% stake in MTN Syria.
MTN’s Middle East operations contribute less than 4% to the group’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) of R41.8bn in its half-year to end-June, while MTN Syria contributed 0.7%.
“MTN has resolved to simplify its portfolio and focus on its pan-African strategy and will therefore be exiting its Middle Eastern assets in an orderly manner over the medium term,” said CEO Rob Shuter.
Ebidta is a measure of the underlying operational performance of a business, with MTN saying this measure grew 10.9% in constant-currency terms during its first half, and before various one-off items.
MTN’s headline earnings per share (heps) jumped 120.5% to 430c in its half-year to end-June, with the group benefiting from, among other things, positive foreign exchange gains in the period.
Profit after tax rose about 145% to R13.3bn.
Data revenue expanded by 32.7% in constant-currency terms, as data traffic surged by 91.5%, boosted by the increase in work-from-home and higher levels of online engagement brought about by the effects of Covid-19, the group said.
Subscribers increased by about 4% to 261.5-million.