This year has proved to be a period of remarkable financial resurgence for MTN. So far in 2025 the company’s shares have outperformed competitors Vodacom and Telkom on the JSE, leaping by more than 70%.
In October MTN reached a new milestone by becoming the first mobile operator in Africa to surpass 300-million customers. This is equivalent to 21% of Africa’s population, making MTN the largest in the continent’s telecommunications sector in terms of customer numbers.
Telecoms is a numbers game. The more customers a company gets, the more revenue it generates and the more it can leverage economies of scale to improve its network and profitability.
And this is what is happening at MTN. During the six months to end-June it reported profit after tax of R12.3bn, reversing the loss of R9.6bn it suffered during the comparable period in 2024. Free cash flow more than doubled to R20.5bn for the period.
MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita hails the performance as the “best in eight years”. However, this impressive achievement is accompanied by enormous risks to MTN’s operations, particularly in the form of legal woes in Iran and Afghanistan. The company faces a grand jury investigation by the US justice department into its operations in those two countries.
Mergence Investment Managers chief investment officer Peter Takaendesa says he expects a prolonged “overhang” on MTN’s investment outlook until the US investigation and other legal issues are resolved.
The grand jury is likely to be probing whether MTN aided terrorist groups in Afghanistan. Though the company exited that country as it completed the sale of its operations in April 2025, the legacy of the investment continues to haunt it.
Mupita tells IM that though MTN has not been accused of any wrongdoing by the US department or been charged with any violations of the law, the company is “limited in what it can say” at the moment, as the investigation is ongoing.
MTN has two other major cases on its hands.
In the case of Iran, it is defending itself against claims by rival Turkcell that it bribed officials to win a lucrative mobile licence in that country in 2005. For more than a decade Turkcell has dragged MTN to courts arguing this. MTN holds a minority 49% investment in Irancell in Iran.
The case is now set to be heard by South Africa’s Constitutional Court, where Turkcell wants at least $4.2bn in damages from MTN — an amount Turkcell’s lawyer Cedric Soule says involves lost business opportunities, turnover and profits due to being denied the Iran licence.
MTN has denied the charges.
MTN has become the first mobile operator in Africa to surpass 300-million customers
In 2019 the families of more than 200 US soldiers killed and wounded in attacks in Afghanistan — which the US invaded in the early 2000s to topple the Taliban — brought a class action suit against MTN under the US Anti-Terrorism Act.
The families claimed that MTN paid “protection money” to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, helping to provide “material support to a known terrorist organisation”. The families filed an amended complaint on August 6 2025 to include additional claims against MTN.
Mupita says MTN will file a motion to dismiss the amended complaint.
“MTN Group has deep sympathy for those who have been injured or have lost loved ones as result of the tragic conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. [The company] is respectfully defending cases … as [it] was not involved in those tragic events and maintains that the plaintiffs have sued the wrong defendants in the wrong courts.”
Takaendesa says the risk for MTN lies in potentially facing fines or settlements, particularly due to its exposure in the Middle East region. “MTN does not have much control over the legal and political processes to resolve issues sooner. The group can only prepare to fight hard legally and avoid any significant fines or claim settlements that can impair the balance sheet, while continuing to exit operations in the highest-risk regions.”
The market already values MTN’s 49% stake in Irancell at zero. When asked if MTN plans to cut losses by exiting Irancell as part of its broader Middle East exit strategy, having already exited Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan, Mupita states only: “MTN does not benefit from this interest … Irancell remains a minority, noncontrolling investment, held for value.”
These issues have overshadowed an otherwise strong performance by MTN. Improved economic conditions in Nigeria boosted revenue and earnings in the company’s business in that country. Altogether, across Africa (notably South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda) and the Middle East, demand for mobile data continues to grow. Mupita recalls that when he joined the MTN Nigeria board in 2017, average mobile data usage per customer was 500MB. Now it stands at 14GB.
To unlock further growth, Mupita says MTN will sharpen its focus over the next five years on three pillars: connectivity, fintech and digital infrastructure. These areas are already showing growth: during the first half of the year, MTN witnessed a 36.5% jump in data revenue and a 37.3% rise in fintech revenue.
Like other telecoms operators in Africa, MTN wants to increase its average service revenue per user, a key metric in assessing the performance of mobile carriers. It’s at $2 now, and MTN aspires to approach the $50 mark seen in developed markets.
In fintech, MTN sees opportunities to expand access to mobile payments, lending and insurance — especially for people excluded from formal banking. Regarding connectivity, MTN aims to grow its share of the home internet market, competing in fixed wireless using 4G and 5G as well as in fibre.
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