MTN Group released its quarterly update for the nine months ended 30 September 2026 on Monday, 9 November. For South African business leaders, the results tell a story of two very different markets. Across the group’s African footprint, growth accelerated sharply. At home, MTN South Africa is generating more profit from a revenue base that is barely moving.
Group performance: growth regains momentum
In constant-currency terms, group service revenue rose 17.2% to R176.2 billion for the nine-month period, with third-quarter service revenue up 16.6%. MTN reports that growth improved every month from May and reached 18.1% in September, a pattern that points to firmer demand for data and connectivity across its markets.
Profitability grew faster than revenue. Group EBITDA increased 22.9% to R86 billion, and the EBITDA margin widened by 2.8 percentage points to 47.9%. In the third quarter alone, EBITDA rose 20.1%.
The customer base continues to scale. At the end of September, MTN served 323.0 million customers, including 181.7 million active data subscribers and 70.3 million active Mobile Money users. Data traffic grew 27.3% to 22,754 petabytes.
Nigeria remained the main engine of growth. Service revenue there rose 23.5% over the nine months and 19.7% in the third quarter, accelerating each month to 21.6% in September.
South Africa: margin recovery without top-line growth
For the South African operation, the third quarter was the strongest earnings quarter of the year. EBITDA increased 7%, and the EBITDA margin expanded by 3.6 percentage points to 38.1%. MTN attributes the improvement to the initial benefits of structural cost interventions.
The revenue picture is more sobering. Service revenue was flat in the third quarter and grew just 1% over the nine months. MTN points to three pressures: weak demand in the prepaid consumer voice market, the impact of lower mobile termination rates, and a deliberate decision to prioritise a healthier, more valuable prepaid customer base rather than chase volume.
That last point deserves attention. Rather than defend subscriber numbers at any cost, MTN South Africa is choosing to concentrate on customers who generate sustainable revenue. It is a strategy that can reduce headline subscriber counts while improving the quality of earnings.
Where the growth is coming from
There are encouraging signs beneath the flat revenue line. Prepaid data revenue growth accelerated to 6.3% in the third quarter, and average data usage reached 5.2GB per month, up 28.9% year on year. Consumer postpaid revenue grew 5.0% in the quarter, supported by 6.1% growth in postpaid subscribers to 4.8 million.
In other words, the South African business is shifting from voice to data, and from prepaid volume to postpaid value. Voice is the legacy revenue stream under pressure; data and contract customers are where the growth now sits.
What it means for South African business
For enterprises, CIOs and procurement teams, MTN’s results carry several practical implications.
First, the operator’s focus on margin over volume suggests that pricing discipline is likely to continue. Organisations negotiating connectivity contracts should expect operators to protect profitability rather than compete aggressively on price.
Second, rising data consumption reflects a broader shift in how South Africans work, bank and transact. Average usage of more than 5GB a month on prepaid alone shows how central mobile data has become to daily economic activity. That matters for any company building customer-facing digital services, from banking applications to e-commerce platforms.
Third, the contrast between MTN’s South African and Nigerian performance highlights how mature the local mobile market has become. Growth at home now depends less on adding new users and more on increasing the value of existing ones through data, fintech and enterprise services.
Finally, the cost-reset story is one that many South African boards will recognise. Faced with low economic growth and slow revenue expansion, companies across sectors are turning to structural cost interventions to protect margins. MTN’s results show that this approach can deliver results quickly. They also show its limits: cost cuts can lift margins, but sustainable growth still requires revenue momentum.
The outlook
MTN South Africa’s third quarter suggests that the operator has found a path back to margin recovery. The next test will be whether data and postpaid revenue can grow fast enough to offset the decline in prepaid voice and return the business to meaningful top-line growth. Investors and enterprise customers alike will be watching closely.
For now, the message to the market is clear. MTN’s home operation is becoming leaner and more focused on value, while its operations elsewhere on the continent continue to drive the group’s expansion.
Source: MTN Group Investor Relations – https://www.mtn.com
