MTN Group expects to increase profits by 90%, report due March 7
Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator, MTN Group expects to increase profits by as much as 90 percent in 2018, as the company continues to recover from a regulatory challenges in Nigeria.
The South African-based company announced it will surpass analyst projection which was curated based on MTN’s dispute with some African regulators.
According to a report, Analysts had predicted that the $8.1 billion repatriation demand dispute with the Central Bank of Nigeria would affect the fourth quarter earnings of the Nigerian unit.
MTN, which is touted as one of South Africa’s biggest corporate success stories, is due to report 2018 results on March 7.
Reuters report that the that headline earnings per share, the primary measure of profit in South Africa, would likely come in a range of 328 cents to 346 cents for the year ended December. That compares with 182 cents a year earlier.
Even the upper end of the forecast is not even half what the company reported in 2015, a year before it agreed to pay a $1.7bn fine over three years for missing a deadline to cut off unregistered SIM card users in Nigeria.
In December, Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator by the number of subscribers agreed to pay $53m to resolve a dispute with the Central Bank of Nigeria, which had accused MTN of repatriating $8.1bn using improperly issued Certificates of Capital Importation.
Nigeria accounts for nearly a third of MTN’s core profit. MTN Nigeria posted a total revenue of about N870 billion (R31.97 billion) for the period ended June 2017.
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