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MTN Rwanda, Africa's largest mobile operator's ninth-biggest market by subscribers, has reported service growth of more than a fifth for its year to end-December amid strong demand for its Mobile Money (MoMo) service, though it is still feeling the effects of 2021 licence renewal.
Service revenue grew 19.9% to 221.7 billion Rwandan Francs (R3.68 billion) in 2022, it said on Friday, though profit fell 12.8% to about R326 million.
MTN Rwandacell listed on the Rwanda Stock Exchange (RSE) in 2021, making the company the first mobile network operator to list on bourse of the east African nation, but the costs of renewing it operating licence in the same year are still being accounted for. Excluding this effect, profit growth would have been more than 20%, the company said.
Mobile subscribers increased by 5.9% year-on-year to 6.8 million, the company said, but MoMo subscribers increased by 16.3% to 4.3 million, while the number of merchants surged 192.6% to 141 222 at period end.
Mobile money is an electronic service that enables users to send and receive money, make payments and perform other transactions using their mobile phones.
"In 2022, MTN Rwanda delivered solid overall business performance and continued growth across all business areas in a challenging macroeconomic environment, characterised by persistent inflationary pressures and currency volatility," said CEO Mapula Bodibe in the results.
In delivering this performance, the group had maintained our leadership in customer market share, she said, which increased by 0.6 percentage points to 64.4% at the end of 2022, according to statistics from the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority.
