MTN MoMo is a fintech product providing consumers and businesses with an electronic wallet by enabling instant customer-customer money transfer, utility, and essential payments as well as access to digital and financial services through a single shortcode or MY MTN App.

At the end of June 2021, MTN MoMo had 48.9 million active users and over 581,514 merchants. The service also enables businesses to accept and make payments through the Momo Pay sub-service. And now, the new partnership will enable Flutterwave to offer MTN Mobile Money as a payment method to its business customers.

Through the new partnership, MTN and Flutterwave will positively contribute to the growing trend of increased mobile money usage, and penetration in Africa through improving local economies and livelihoods as well as create opportunities for customers across the continent.

Commenting on the partnership, Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, said:

“Africa has one of the highest growth rates for mobile money adoption and e-commerce in the world. It makes sense that we help provide a seamless payment method to support and ensure African businesses reap the full benefits of the e-commerce boom in the region. Our goal has always been to grow a new wave of prosperity in Africa by creating more avenues for businesses in Africa to accept payments. With this partnership, we can achieve this while creating endless possibilities for our customers.”

In agreement, Serigne Dioum, MTN Group Chief Digital and Fintech Officer commented on the new partnership and said:

 “As we progress on our journey to becoming the largest fintech platform in Africa, we will empower millions of businesses to embrace e-commerce in our markets to accept digital payments from MoMo consumers. We believe this is an enabler to accelerating digitized payments in Africa. Building strong ecosystems through partnerships is central to our platform strategy and we will continue to invest in expanding the reach of our platform to consumers and businesses in Africa.” 

Also, the new partnership will further expand on Flutterwave’s previous collaboration with MTN, beyond Uganda and Rwanda – with the potential of deepening the adoption of digital payments and e-commerce in Africa, a sector expected to reach $29 billion by 2022, according to Statista. 

The Group added 29 million subscribers in the year, to reach a total of 280 million across 21 markets. It reported a 52% increase in adjusted headline earnings per share, a 14% point increase in return on equity to 17% and more than doubled the operating cash flow to R28,3 billion.

“We continued to perform favourably against our medium-term targets,” said President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita. “In constant currency terms, service revenue grew 11,9% to R170 billion and EBITDA increased by 13,4%, maintaining our strong operating leverage. The Group’s EBITDA margin improved by 0,9pp to 42,7%, benefiting from the execution of our expense efficiency programme.”

In Uganda, MTN posted a very strong and resilient performance in Q4 of 2020 despite the COVID-19 disruptions. The subscriber base increased by 12.3% to 14.2 million subscribers, up from 12.6 million the previous year.

Active data users were up by 34.8% to 4.6 million, which drove an increase in traffic also brought about by higher levels of online demand resulting from the effects of COVID-19. This was supported by learn-from-home and work-from-home offerings provided for our customers.

In pursuit of our financial inclusion objectives and growth strategy, Mobile Money (MoMo) users grew by 14.4% YOY to 8.5 million, spurred by the move towards cashless financial transactions to avert the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. While COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of mobile financial services, growth in fintech revenue was moderated by reductions in transaction fees to support our customers, lockdown restrictions on agents and a slowdown in economic activity. However, we believe that this builds a solid base for future growth in our fintech business.

Absolute EBITDA in constant currency terms increased by 14.9% YoY in 2020, with a 2,4pp increase in EBITDA margin to 49.5%. This was driven by a well-executed sustainable cost efficiency program.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, MTN Uganda undertook a number of initiatives aimed at easing the negative impact of the pandemic on its customers and the economy as a whole. MTN Uganda lowered MoMo transaction rates to enhance individual disposable income for its customers and launched subsidized data bundles to ease the transition to working from home. The telco also zero-rated university and school websites to facilitate home learning. In total MTN Uganda spent in excess of UGX2 billion on various COVID 19 interventions.

“MTN Uganda is committed to enhancing the wellbeing of our customers especially in the midst of global challenges. We will continue to invest in better connectivity, a seamless customer experience and better pricing structure to enable us to continue delivering a bold, new digital world for our customers”

Said WIM Vanhelleputte – The MTN Uganda Chief Executive Officer

Vanhelleputte further explained that with the planned listing of MTN Uganda on the Uganda Securities Exchange, the telecom company looks forward to enabling Ugandan’s to own a part of the success story of MTN, and that this will further accelerate performance going forward.

MTN Uganda will continue to invest heavily over the next five years in infrastructure development and advanced technologies which will give the customer a better experience and help the company further enhance its leadership position in this market.

Prioritising the lives of customers

The MTN Group continued to prioritize the health and safety of its people and mourned the loss of 10 MTN employees to COVID-19, after reporting a total of 1,404 infections in the period to the end of February 2021.

“We are pleased to have made a US$25 million donation in support of the African Union’s programme to secure much-needed COVID-19 vaccines,” said the Group President. “This partnership deepens MTN’s role in the ongoing work to save lives in the markets in which we operate. Importantly, it aligns with our ambition to create shared value and ensure the continent’s future progress and prosperity.”

Whilst managing the challenges presented by COVID-19, MTN Group remains cognizant of the opportunities presented by the pandemic, particularly the accelerated need for digitalization evidenced in the greater adoption and usage of MTN services.

During the year, 19 million data users and almost 12 million MoMo users joined the MTN family, to reach totals of over 114 million and 46 million respectively. The Group’s networks remained well invested, with a capex of R28,6 billion in 2020 and headroom to accommodate growth of more than 110% in data traffic in the year.

Ambition 2025

MTN Group also announced a revised strategy. “Further to our previous announcement regarding our intention to focus on our pan-Africa strategy, we completed a comprehensive strategy review in Q4 2020 and are excited to introduce ‘Ambition 2025’,” Ralph said. “As part of this strategic repositioning, we are looking to structurally separate our infrastructure assets and platforms, such as fintech, to reveal value and attract third-party capital and partnerships into these businesses, over the medium-term.”

“Going forward, we believe that Ambition 2025 will position the business to capture the exciting opportunities across our markets and our medium-term guidance has been enhanced to reflect this accelerating growth outlook. To support this, we plan to invest approximately R29.1 billion in our network, fintech and digital services platforms in 2021.”

EDITOR’s NOTE: Part of this story is from an official press release shared with the Tech Point Magazine team.

In his position as the Group CFO, Ralph played a critical role in the development and execution of the giant telecommunications company’s strategy, capital allocation processes, financial performance, and resolution of complex regulator matters.

According to the MTN Group Chairman Mr. Mcebisi Jonas, Ralph was selected after a rigorous and extensive search process, through which they had to select someone of Ralph’s caliber, experience, and ability to fill the group’s CEO position.

“Ralph’s experience as the group CFO, strong knowledge of our businesses and markets, as well as successful background in financial services, M&A and emerging markets, place him in an excellent position to lead the growth and sustainability of the business going forward.”

Prior to joining MTN Group, Ralph graduated from the University of Cape Town with a degree in Engineering and an MBA. He then became the CEO of Old Mutual Emerging Markets – a company that provides financial services to individuals across 19countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. 

Commenting on his appointment, Ralph said: “Leading a business with MTN Group’s history, scale, and socio-economic impact is a privilege and honor, and I look forward to working with the group board and executive committee in driving growth and unlocking value for shareholders and broader stakeholders.”

The current and outgoing group President and CEO Rob Shuter will step down from his executive role on 31^st August 2020, and will support Ralph as required until the end of his fixed-term contract in 2021. 

Since the Group’s President and CEO position has now been occupied, the upcoming CEO’s previous role as CFO is now vacant and an announcement may be shared by the Company before 1^st September 2020.

Organized by Brand Africa in conjunction with Publics Africa and the Public Relations Association Uganda (PRAU). The awards were tamed at recognising brands that have created a positive image for Africa on top of showcasing its diversity to drive competitiveness.

While Representing MTN Uganda at the award ceremony, Mr Joseph Bogera the MTN Uganda General Manager – Sales and Distribution inked the brand’s courage to progress every day to deliver on their belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life as he said:

“This award is an endorsement of our efforts towards keeping every Ugandan connected.  We are pleased to be connecting over 13 million customers enjoying MTN’s quality voice and data services across all the 135 districts in Uganda with over 7 Million transacting on our Mobile Money platform”

Joseph Bogera – General Manager, MTN Uganda

The Award comes at a time when MTN Group is celebrating over 100million actively connected data users across 21 African countries. In Uganda, the telco celebrates over 13million data + voice customers after being recognized with an Award for the best network services earlier this year.

So, the new Award that comes at a time when its mother company MTN Group is celebrating 100+ million customers across the continent, MTN Uganda continues to strengthen its position as the country’s telecommunications Big Dog.

“Our mission is to lead the delivery of a bold, new digital world to our customers, We are delighted to have connected 100 million of our customers to the power of the internet as we have increase data coverage and reduced the cost to communicate across our market” ” said the MTN Group President and CEO Rob Shuter.”

The report stated that MTN’s brand value was boosted by a solid overall performance in 2019 despite challenging economic conditions and regulatory challenges in some markets like Uganda where it had to renew its 20-year license.

Brand Finance as well recognised MTN for its continued focus on customers on top of providing high-quality services in countries it exists. In Uganda, MTN received a high-performance score award from Rhode & Schwarz in for its network quality ratings countrywide.

According to the Brand Finance CEO, David Haigh, the telecommunications group not only leveled its performance grounds in its home market, but also carries the same standard to other countries where it operates.

Additionally, Brand Finance acknowledged MTN’s strategy of growing revenue through data and digital while focusing on improving its overall subscriber base satisfaction rate.

In recognition for the year to year bullish positions, Brand Finance upgraded MTN’s brand strength from AAA- to AAA as a signal of continued growth and dominance as the top telecom operator in Africa.

In the light of the current Corona Virus Pandemic shaking the World’s biggest telecom companies to a level of 5G towers being burnt in the UK over conspiracies. The report noted that major telcos will be affected by the situation, thus all should be prepared to serve subscribers in such times.

“We have built a sound, robust and resilient organisation that can and will weather the storm before us. As a Group, we are taking the decisive steps required to persevere in our MTN spirit of togetherness and a positive, can-do attitude,” MTN CEO Rob Shutter Commented

In Uganda, the telco initiated its Lockdown strategy with Work from Home Internet bundles for customers before rolling out unlimited calls for as low as UGX 100 during movement prohibited hours (Curfew).

So, with a new top recognition award, MTN group could be destined to providing more quality services to its customers across Africa.