MTN Nigeria 9M Profit Jumps 55% to ₦1.17trn as Data Revenue Surges

Data Now Carries the Business

The composition of MTN Nigeria's revenue has shifted decisively. Data produced ₦2.68 trillion of the ₦4.59 trillion service revenue total, and it grew nearly three times as fast as the subscriber base: active data users rose 12% to 57.2 million, but average monthly consumption per user climbed 16.2% to 15.3 gigabytes, pushing total traffic up 30.1%. Growth is therefore coming from heavier use by existing customers at least as much as from new connections, a pattern that supports revenue without a matching rise in acquisition costs.

Fibre to the home is quietly reinforcing that trend. The fixed broadband business now carries about 13% of total data traffic, taking pressure off the mobile network while opening a second, stickier revenue line in households. Management said the company leads that market, and continued fibre rollout featured prominently in the period's ₦864.8 billion capital spend.

Costs Rose Far More Slowly Than Revenue

Profit grew faster than sales because the cost base barely moved in comparison. Operating expenses increased 8.5% against service revenue growth of 23.7%, and net finance costs fell 25.3% to ₦277 billion. The result was operating leverage in its clearest form: operating profit up 38.2% to ₦1.99 trillion and an EBITDA margin of 56.9%, up from roughly 51.4% a year earlier.

The balance sheet absorbed the spending comfortably. MTN paid about ₦860 billion in dividends during the nine months and still ended September in a net cash position of ₦47.7 billion, with borrowings down to ₦333.32 billion from ₦527.67 billion at the end of 2025 and, in the chief executive's words, fully naira denominated at fixed rates. Total assets rose 10.6% to ₦5.97 trillion, while shareholders' equity climbed 53.8% to ₦843.91 billion. Tax was the main brake on the bottom line, rising 67.6% to ₦630.47 billion.

The One Weak Line Is Fintech

Set against that performance, the fintech segment's decline stands out. Fintech revenue fell 25.9% to ₦97.5 billion after the airtime and data credit service was suspended between April and June, before relaunching under a multi partner model. Digital revenue, by contrast, rose 24% to ₦88.3 billion, so the weakness is specific to the payments and lending operation rather than a broader slowdown in non voice services.

Management has named rebuilding fintech momentum as a final quarter priority, alongside sustaining growth, protecting margins and scaling home broadband. The core connectivity engine is producing enough cash to fund that repair job internally: ₦2.31 trillion of net operating cash flow in nine months means the fintech recovery will be judged on execution, not on resources.