Full text: MTN Ghana CEO’s speech at 4th AGM
Dear Shareholders,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 4th Annual General Meeting as a publicly listed company, to share with you the report of your company’s activities and business performance for the year ended
December 31, 2021.
2021 in review
2021 was a special year for MTN Ghana, as it marked 25 years of providing vital telecommunications and digital services to Ghanaians. During this period, MTN Ghana played its part in improving the lives of Ghanaians as well as enabling growth of businesses and the economy.
We commemorated the milestone by celebrating the loyalty and trust we have received from our valued customers, our people and all stakeholders including our trade partners, our technology partners, our business collaborators, our regulators and our media partners, who have made this journey possible.
We also commissioned three landmark projects in Health and ICT skills development as part of our
corporate social investments as well as extending our scholarship program to support 300 students
over three years into local tertiary institutions.
These initiatives reflect our commitment to the people of Ghana in the communities within which we
operate, to promote health, education and economic empowerment as part of our Corporate Social
Investments. To crown the year, we delivered strong financial results in line with our market guidance and achieved growth across our key business segments in a world that continued to be impacted by COVID-19.
Operational review
As the nation navigated through unprecedented times, we continued to demonstrate and live our ‘Can
Do’ value through sustained investments, sound operational execution and resilience in delivering
continued growth in our core business during 2021. Service revenue grew by 28.5%, driven mainly by
increased investment in the network and delivery of commercial initiatives which resulted in growth of
our customer base and demand for our services. Our customers remained our key focus and we
continued to invest in digitalising our customer support services and improving our flagship MyMTN
app.
We improved our support as well as elevated the available self-service options. For example, MTN
customers are now able to check their bills, look at call records and data spend and also seek help
among other services on the MyMTN app.
We remained committed to truly putting the customer at the heart of the organisation to achieve high levels of advocacy, measured through our Net Promoter Score (NPS). The pandemic heightened
our need to align our focus on addressing essential customer needs with empathy, care and concern. We enhanced our customer service resolution through a variety of different channels including our customer service digital channels and the use of social media to listen to and improve our understanding of customer sentiments.
The pandemic and ongoing changes in the world showed how critical connectivity and digital services
are to society. We have seen demand for mobile connectivity grow rapidly every year and we continue
to invest a significant amount of money in making our network even better. In 2021, we invested a total
Capex of ¢1.5 billion supporting infrastructure modernisation, expansion of 4G population coverage
to over 90.6% (+18.9pp) and improvements to the quality of service.
Improvements to network capacity and quality were made possible by rolling out 131 2G, 120 3G and
1,446 4G sites and modernising 2,121 existing 4G sites. We extended 4G network and data services to
an additional 1.7 million people, deepening digital inclusion in Ghana.
Investments in the network and IT systems, coupled with the execution of our commercial strategy,
enabled the expansion of the subscriber base by
1.0 million YoY to 25.4 million. These investments
combined with changes in consumer usage patterns
resulted in active data user growth of 15.3% YoY
with a corresponding growth of 34.3% in megabytes
consumed per active subscriber.
The growth in subscriber numbers, product
enhancements and innovations around customer
value management supported growth in voice revenue
by 4.9% YoY to GHS2.6 billion. The contribution of
voice to service revenue consequently declined
from 41.8% to 34.1% YoY in favour of increased
contributions from data and Mobile Money.
Data revenue grew by 56.3% YoY to GHS2.8 billion. This
was a result of increased data traffic (+54.9%) owing
to various commercial interventions, improvements
to the network, changes in consumer usage
behaviour and an increased number of smartphones
on the network (+10.6%). The contribution of data to
service revenue increased from 29.6% to 36.0% YoY
in line with our revenue diversification strategy.
Active MoMo users recovered from the challenges
in H1 2021 to achieve a growth of 3.8% YoY. We
expanded our MoMo distribution and footprint
across the nation through the growth in active
agents (+18.7% YoY). We also expanded merchants
(+29.9% YoY) to bring our services much closer to
our customers and to further enhance financial
inclusion.
Growth in Mobile Money advanced service offerings
such as retail merchant payments, micro loans,
insurance and international remittances supported
an increase in Mobile Money revenue by 38.2% YoY to
GHS1.7 billion. The contribution of Mobile Money to
service revenue increased from 20.9% to 22.5% YoY.
Enhancements were made to allow the sale of
airtime to all other operators on our MoMo service
on USSD and MyMTN app, as part of our intent to
achieve MoMo universality in the ecosystem. We
further enhanced the integration of Mobile Money
service into our ayoba super app, and this helped
drive customer experience and transactional activity
on the super app.
Digital revenue declined by 5.1% YoY to GHS0.2
million. During the period we embarked on a cleanup
of our digital products and services to enhance
customer experience and rationalization of our digital
products portfolio, improved our digital messaging
channels and added more value to our music and
gaming offerings to meet the entertainment needs of
our customers. These helped grow our active digital
subscribers by 1.1 million to 4.2 million in the period.
We continued to drive operational efficiency in the
business. This helped support a 33.7% YoY growth
in EBITDA and margin expansion of 2.3pp to 55.0%.
Profit after tax increased by 43.5% YoY.
Management changes
Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce
that, in October 2021, Antoinette Kwofie joined MTN
Ghana as Chief Finance Officer (CFO) from Absa
Bank Ghana, where she held the role of CFO for more
than eight years. The management team also gained
a new member in the person of Shaibu Haruna, who
is our Chief Sales and Distribution officer. Shaibu has
decades of experience in sales and leadership roles
and we are pleased to have him as part of the team.
While we had great additions to the team, our Chief
Corporate Services Officer, Samuel Koranteng,
retired from active duty. I want to wish him the very
best and announce that Nana Kofi Asare (who is
our Senior Manager, Legal) will act in this role until a
replacement is appointed.
I wish them all the very best in their respective roles
and endeavours.
Looking ahead
In 2022, our areas of focus include improving
customer experience across all services and regions
to further enhance subscriber growth and usage of
our services. We also plan to expand our 4G / 4G+
service by implementing 4G everywhere you go (i.e.,
4G on every site) by the end of 2022 and scale up
efforts in the digitalisation journey with a focus on
MyMTN and the ayoba super app. Mobile Money
ecosystem expansion will also be a key focus for us
through innovations in advanced services and work
to deepen the penetration of MoMo users within the
base.
We forecast service revenue growth in the high teens
(in percentage terms) over the medium-term from
the previous guidance of 13% to 15%. In addition, we
will progress the execution of the expense efficiency
programme and our prudent approach to managing
costs to deliver on our commitment of margin
expansion.
Execution of our Ambition 2025 strategy will continue,
as we seek to build a platform business that enables
broader digital ecosystem acceleration. We expect
to make considerable progress on localisation of
Scancom PLC and its subsidiary, MobileMoney
Limited.
Conclusion
As I conclude, I would like to note my appreciation to
the management and employees of MTN Ghana for
their tireless efforts, and the great sacrifices made to
ensure we deliver on the set targets. I am confident
about the opportunities that lie ahead of us and I
look forward to your continued support to steer MTN
Ghana to greater heights in the years to come.
On behalf of the staff of MTN Ghana, I would like
to extend my sincere appreciation to the Board of
Directors for their continued guidance and support
and for the many challenges they have helped us
navigate positively.
I also wish to thank our customers, strategic partners,
government, regulators and you, our shareholders,
for your continued faith in the leadership and
strategy of MTN Ghana. Thank you, please stay safe
and God bless us all.
Source: Ghana News
