MTN Nigeria Plc has reported a N177.8 billion pre-tax loss in its 2023 financial statement.
The loss compared to a N518.8 billion pre-tax profit it made in the previous year.
The telco blamed the losses on a significant foreign exchange loss that increased from N81 billion in 2022 to N740 billion.
MTN Nigeria's operations were exposed to foreign currency volatility on both its operating and capital expenditure.
“The loss was significantly due to operational changes to the Nigerian Foreign exchange market, including the abolishment of the segmented/parallel structure announced by CBN in June 2023.” MTN said, in its 2023 financial statement.
In spite of the declared loss, the MTN business fundamentals are still strong with a N2.5 trillion top line revenue, up 23per cent; N1.2 trillion in EBITDA, up 12percent and N632 billion in free cash flow, up 12percent.
On subscription, the statement revealed that total subscribers increased by 5.3 per cent to 79.7 million; active data users increased by 12.7 per cent to 44.6 million; active mobile money (MoMo PSB) wallets increased by 163.2 per cent to 5.3 million; earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 12.3 per cent to N1.2 trillion and
EBITDA margin decreased by 4.5 percentage points (pp) to 48.7 per cent.
In his reaction, Karl Toriola, chief executive officer, MTN Nigeria said that “despite headwinds, we remain optimistic and committed. We believe in Nigeria”
