Though voice contributed to 75% of the firm’s R136 495 million revenue from its 207,8 million subscribers in 22 countries across Africa and Middle East, MTN Group is looking beyond voice for growth and digital dominance.
As a revenue earner, MTN says voice continued to face pressure due to aggressive price competition and lower mobile termination rates, which caused a decrease of 1,8 percentage points in its contribution to overall revenue.
According to the firm in its 2013 financial statement,”We continue to explore opportunities to expand our product offering outside of traditional voice and expect to increase our presence in the digital space by leveraging technology and maximising the opportunity of low internet penetration in our markets.”
MTN’s plan to venture into the digital entrepreneurship space affirms its recent partnership with Rocket Internet and Millicom in Africa and Middle East to build eCommerce business. The firm says the partnership with Rocket Internet will enhance growth in its internet business in Africa and the Middle East. MTN invested around $410 million in both deals set to be complete by the first quarter of this year.
MTN Group will co-own with Rocket Internet all ventures under the Middle East Internet Holding and own a third of Rocket Internet and Millicom’s Africa Internet Holdings.
Apart frominternet businesses, MTN says it’s segmented offerings as well as value-added products and services remain priorities going forward. The firm said its expanding its 3G coverage and enabling access to affordable data-enabled devices to support strong growth in data usage and as well provide innovative ICT solutions to corporate and SME customers and MTN Mobile Money and broader financial services.During the year, data services were the key driver of the Group’s revenue growth and increased their contribution by 3,1 percentage points to 15,1%. The number of data users increased by 37,4% to 80,6 million as we expanded our 3G networks and stimulated the adoption of data-enabled devices and smartphones. With over 34.8 million smartphones on its network, an increase of 59,0% in the previous year and its new affordable “Steppa” smartphone, MTN expects to earn more from data this year.