Author: amogelangmaluleka

MTN Group has signed the United Nations Women Empowerment Principles, pledging its commitment to the advancement of Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, at MTN’s International Women’s Day event.The Principles provide guidance on how businesses in all sectors can advance and empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community. MTN Group purposefully operates to ensure that everyone deserves the benefit of a modern connected life. To guarantee this, the Group strives to ensure that men and women benefit equally from ICT thereby assisting to reduce inequalities that exist across its footprint.

Gender Empowerment is a key strategic component of MTN’s Corporate Social Investment across its footprint. Significant contributions have been towards the empowerment and development of girls and women in the countries in which we operate. Initiatives include enabling access to ICT and building capacity of girls and women in coding, robotics, programming & computer assembling.

According to the GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report 2019, women in low- and middle-income countries are 10% less likely than men to own a mobile device, and 23% less likely to make use of the internet, as compared to their male counterparts. “MTN Group commits itself fully to the Women’s Empowerment Principles, as this has the capability to transform lives across the continent and beyond,” said Rob Shuter, MTN President and CEO, MTN Group. “If the mobile gender gap is not addressed, women risk being left behind as societies and economies digitise.  Importantly, we are honoured to be part of the pledge, which also supports African Union’s focus on driving women’s financial and economic inclusion, gender-based violence and accountability to global gender commitments,” he added.

Through this pledge and strategic partnerships, MTN intends to meaningfully respond to barriers that arise from ICT and address inequalities that hinder girls and women from fully participating in and benefiting from the bold, new digital world. And to ensure girls and women have the necessary skills and knowledge to understand, develop content, participate in and benefit fully from ICTs and their applications.

MTN commends the deliberate commitment made by the African Union to bridge the gender gap on the continent. We share the view that women should be enabled to play a meaningful role in developing our continent.

MTN Ghana (Scancom PLC or MTNGH or the Company) delivered a strong performance for the year in a competitive industry, maintaining market leadership with 55.21% market share. Service revenue increased by 22.8% year-on-year (YoY), underpinned by growth in revenue from voice, data and Mobile Money (MoMo).

Double-digit growth in voice revenue (up 19.4% YoY) was driven by an increase in the number of active subscribers* (+11.2%), the benefits of various customer value management (CVM) initiatives and pro-consumer activity, as well as continued improvements to our network. As new lines of revenue continued to grow much faster than the traditional business, voice revenue’s contribution to service revenue decreased from 46.3% to 45.0%.

Solid data revenue growth (up 32.5% YoY) was attributable to growth in active data users# (+26.6%), growth in the number of smartphones (+18.5%) on the network and an increase in data usage (up 85.9% to 256,301 Terabyte). Data revenue’s contribution to service revenue expanded from 26.3% to 28.4%.

Click here for more details: https://www.mtn.com/investors/shareholders/sens/category-sens/?sens_year=2020

Today, MTN Nigeria appeared before a Federal High Court in Lagos, Nigeria to formally discontinue its legal action against the Attorney General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Minister of Justice (the “AGF”). This follows from the decision of the AGF to hand the matter over to the relevant regulatory authorities.

MTN applied today to have the legal action struck out, which request was granted by the court.

MTN remains committed to meeting its fiscal responsibilities and contributing to the social and economic development of Nigeria in collaboration with all stakeholders .

An MTN delegation represented by Chairman of MTN Group, Mcebisi Jonas; Chairman of MTN Nigeria, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe; MTN Group CEO, Rob Shuter and MTN Nigeria CEO, Ferdi Moolman met with His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria. They also met with key government officials including Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami; Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele and AttorneyGeneral and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami.

As part of its ongoing commitment to Nigeria, MTN announced a capital investment programme of $1.6 billion (approximately N580 billion) over the next three years to strengthen and expand its network and operations in the country.

The news was shared during a statement by President Buhari, whereby he reaffirmed that the Federal Government of Nigeria is committed to providing an enabling environment for businesses to succeed. He went on to say that the government is also looking at ways to increase the level of security across critical national infrastructure, noting that it would guarantee seamless service delivery and also facilitate investments throughout the country.

The President expressed that he was pleased with MTN’s support of Nigeria’s digital inclusion programmes and its commitment to growing the telecommunications industry across the region.

Commenting on the news, Chairman of MTN Group Mr Mcebisi Jonas said, “We are steadfast about our investments in Nigeria, particularly over the next three years as we aim to strengthen and expand our network and systems. We are fully aligned with the strategic agenda of the Nigerian government and are committed to strengthening the digital economy of the country,” he continued.

“Financial inclusion and access to funding and digital services all become easier when our continent is powered by connectivity. The benefits of a connected continent are far reaching, making a positive impact across Africa. We cannot achieve this goal on our own, and are working on strengthening relationships with our key partners to extend access to comprehensive and affordable solutions to all,” said Rob Shuter, MTN Group President and CEO.

MTN Group has announced that Gordian Kyomukama has been appointed as the new MTN South Sudan CEO, effective 21 January 2020. Gordian is a seasoned telecoms executive, with close to 30 years of experience in the sector, most of which has been with MTN.

He started in MTN Uganda as part of the Opco’s pioneer team and has also undertaken secondment opportunities in Rwanda, Cameroon and Ivory Coast, in the course of his tenure. Prior to returning to Uganda, he was Chief Technology and Information Officer (CTIO) of MTN Liberia.

Commenting on Gordian’s appointment, MTN Group CEO Rob Shuter said, “I would like to congratulate Gordian on his new role, and I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Lily Zondo, who has been holding the fort as acting South Sudan CEO over the past few months. Lily will resume her role as MTN South Sudan Chief Financial Officer (CFO) with immediate effect.”

Changes in Cameroon

MTN Cameroon CEO, Hendrik Kasteel, will be leaving MTN at the end of March, due to personal reasons. He will serve out his notice over the next two months, and a successor will be announced when finalised.

On 4 September 2018, MTN announced that MTN Nigeria Communications PLC (“MTN Nigeria”) was disputing a claim for back taxes of approximately USD2 billion by the Attorney General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Minister of Justice (the “AGF”). Subsequent to this, MTN Nigeria commenced legal action in Nigeria against the AGF, which court action was most recently postponed to 30 January 2020.

MTN Nigeria has been informed by means of a letter received by its legal counsel and dated 8 January 2020, that following careful review and due consultation with relevant statutory agencies, the AGF has decided to refer the matter to the relevant authorities, being the Federal Inland Revenue Service (“FIRS”) and Nigeria Customs (“NC”), with a view to them resolving the issues. Accordingly, the AGF has withdrawn its letter of demand for the aforementioned USD2 billion that was issued in August 2018.

MTN Nigeria will consequently follow due court process to withdraw its legal action against the AGF and engage with FIRS and NC on this issue. MTN remains committed to building and maintaining cordial relationships with all regulatory authorities in Nigeria. Commenting on the news, MTN Group CEO, Rob Shuter said “we appreciate this decision of the Attorney General which paves the way to an orderly and amicable resolution of this matter.  MTN remains fully committed to meeting our fiscal responsibilities and contributing to the social and economic development of Nigeria and all regions where we operate.”

Driven by the belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life, MTN is ramping up its efforts to enhance access to digital and financial services for its customers. The company’s latest Fintech innovation is a mobile remittance application, MTN Homeland, aimed at facilitating money and airtime transfers from Europe to Africa and parts of the Middle East.

Speaking about MTN’s latest Fintech offering, Group President and CEO Rob Shuter said, “The value of remittances from the diaspora exceeds Foreign Direct Investment in Africa. MTN has the largest Fintech and Telecommunication footprint in Africa and is therefore uniquely positioned to go beyond mobile communication by offering instant, low cost digital remittances. MTN Homeland is one more example of how MTN uses Fintech to expand its reach beyond its existing footprint and core business while driving meaningful impact to millions.”

With MTN Homeland, remittances can be made from Europe to Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Ghana, Guinea Conakry, Rwanda and Uganda, while airtime can be sent to Afghanistan, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia.

MTN Homeland also supports MTN’s contribution to the achievement of the tenth UN Sustainable Development Goal, which is to reduce inequality within and among countries. One of this SDG’s targets is to reduce the price of remittances to under 3% of the value of the remittance into Africa – MTN Homeland has been priced with that target in mind.

Commenting on the service, Serigne Dioum, MTN Executive for Fintech expressed his delight at the launch of the App, saying: “We believe this offering will not only make the lives of our mobile money customers on the African continent a whole lot brighter, but those in the diaspora too.” Dioum added that the company is working towards enabling remittances from the US, Australia, UAE and other corridors into Africa.”

MTN Group is aware of a proposal that has been circulating on the internet, regarding a digital currency product called ‘MTN Coin’. The unsolicited proposal submitted to MTN by an entity called Eureka Africa was not adopted, and we therefore wish to distance ourselves from the document, as well as the services and offerings it mentions, as these are not provided by MTN.

We continually engage and collaborate with various vendors, and if necessary, use official MTN channels to communicate such partnerships.

We request that publishers refrain from sharing this document or its contents on any public platforms.

In the continued drive for innovation in cost-effective rural coverage MTN is pleased to announce that it has deployed over 200 commercial rural sites across its footprint, using OpenRAN technology. MTN is amongst the pioneers of OpenRAN – the technology which enables operators to achieve cost-effective deployments allowing for greater connectivity to previously unconnected areas.

MTN is projecting to deploy more than 5,000 sites in rural areas across its 21 operations, bringing 2G, 3G and 4G connectivity to areas that were previously unconnected. In order to realise this goal, MTN will rely on an ecosystem of partners who will bring their expertise to build and maintain the sites, utilising a full turnkey approach.

“Our Group Technology team has been pioneering OpenRAN, concluding field trials in Zambia in 2018 and deploying commercial sites from the beginning of 2019. We focus on creating viable new RAN solutions alongside the traditional deployments of network technology suppliers in order to accelerate the rural expansion in our markets,” said Rob Shuter, MTN Group President and CEO.

MTN operations in Uganda and Guinea Conakry are already benefiting from this technology, as MTN has also partnered with the likes of VANU, Parallel Wireless and NuRAN Wireless to deliver the technology.

As one of the foremost members of the Telecom Infrastructure Project (TIP), MTN carries out solution testing on all hardware and software elements at its state-of-the-art head office in Johannesburg, South Africa. The TIP initiative aims to define 2G, 3G and 4G RAN solutions based on general-purpose, vendor-neutral hardware and software-defined technology.

By continuing to accelerate innovation through initiatives such as OpenRAN, MTN continues to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world, solidifying its position as a leading mobile operator in the market.