MTN Nigeria’s half-year 2026 results read like the turnaround story the telecom has been waiting years to tell: service revenue up 25.9% to ₦3 trillion, profit after tax up 70.6% to ₦707.5 billion, and a ₦26 interim dividend for shareholders. But in a recent interview, Chief Financial Officer Modupe Kadri spent most of her airtime doing something unusual for an executive fresh off a blowout quarter — talking the headline number down.
Her core argument: revenue is not profit, and the gap between the two tells a more honest story about where the money actually goes. She put a figure on it herself — for every naira MTN Nigeria brings in, only about 24 kobo ultimately reaches shareholders as distributable profit, a ratio that lines up with the period’s real margin once costs, taxes, and reinvestment are accounted for.
The Numbers Behind the Headline
The H1 2026 results, covering the six months to June 30, were strong by almost any measure. EBITDA rose 39.2% to ₦1.7 trillion, pushing margins to 55.9%. Data was the clear engine of growth, climbing 38.4% to ₦1.70 trillion and overtaking every other line to become MTN’s single largest revenue source, helped by a subscriber base that grew 8.9% to 92.2 million and smartphone penetration that jumped from under 55% to 66%. Voice grew a steadier 12%.
A more stable naira did real work too. The currency closed the half at roughly ₦1,380 to the dollar, against ₦1,530 a year earlier, and MTN’s decision to fully clear its foreign-currency debt turned a ₦5.2 billion exchange loss in H1 2025 into a ₦36.4 billion gain this time around.
Why Kadri Is Pushing Back on the Headline
Kadri’s 24-kobo framing is doing specific work: it’s a pre-emptive answer to the obvious question a ₦3 trillion number invites in an economy where households are feeling every naira of inflation — is MTN just extracting value? Her answer, in effect, is that revenue is heavily taxed and reinvested long before it reaches an owner. She pointed out, unprompted, that 10% of whatever shareholders receive as dividends flows straight back to government as tax, layered on top of more than ₦600 billion the company already pays annually in taxes and regulatory levies to the NCC.
The capex story reinforces the same point. Kadri put total spending since January 2025 at over ₦1.6 trillion — roughly ₦1 trillion last year and ₦600 billion in this half alone — funded entirely from operating cash flow rather than new borrowing. Reported capex excluding lease costs actually rose modestly during the half even as total capex, including leases, fell 19%, a gap Kadri used to argue that a lower headline capex figure doesn’t mean MTN pulled back on network investment.
The Fintech Asterisk
Not every part of the results supports a clean turnaround narrative. Fintech revenue fell during the half, which Kadri tied directly to the suspension of MTN’s NCC-regulated lending product for most of the period, only partially restored by June. That decline sits awkwardly next to a mobile money business that kept growing regardless: active MoMo wallets reached 5 million during the half, even as the lending line stayed suspended. MTN’s own filings suggest the fintech dip actually flattered the core telecom number — strip out the suspended lending product, and underlying service revenue growth was even stronger, at 27.3%.
The more consequential fintech development is structural. Kadri confirmed MTN Nigeria will dilute its stake in the mobile money business to 40%, handing 60% to MTN Group Fintech — a move she framed as capital allocation rather than a retreat from financial services. She was careful to note that this restructuring, still awaiting regulatory approval, is separate from any decision on an eventual public listing, which remains undecided.
What Kadri Didn’t Say
For all the numbers on offer, timing was conspicuously absent. Kadri gave no date for the fintech spin-off’s regulatory approval, no indication of when — or whether — tariffs might rise once the NCC’s ongoing cost study concludes, and no concrete plan for the fibre vandalism and site lockouts that continue to disrupt service regardless of how much MTN spends on its network. On competition, she welcomed newly licensed MVNOs and national roaming operators in principle, while noting they currently run on MTN’s own infrastructure — a detail that quietly undercuts how much competitive pressure they can realistically apply for now.
For a company posting its strongest half in years, the unresolved questions may end up mattering more than the record numbers.
