It’s not MTN’s biggest operation, but Ghana is nonetheless an important market for the telecommunications group. And the latest results from the West African subsidiary are likely to cheer investors.

For the three months ended 31 March 2019, MTN Ghana’s service revenue leapt by 21.9% year on year, while data revenue climbed 22.3% and mobile financial services revenue rose 51%. Even voice revenue did well, rising 20.3%.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda — a measure of operational performance) jumped 38.6%, with Ebitda margin expanding 5.9 percentage points to 47.9%.

The unaudited financial statements were prepared on an IFRS 16 basis adopted on 1 January 2019. On a normalised IAS 17 basis, Ebitda margin would have remained flat at about 42%, MTN said.

Active subscribers came in at 20.8 million, up from 18.6 million previously. Active mobile money subscribers rose to 9.9 million, from 8.4 million a year ago.  — (c) 2019 NewsCentral Media