MTN South Africa sees data use surge as service revenue remains weak

MTN South Africa recorded a sharp rise in mobile data usage during the first nine months of 2026, but the increase did not translate into comparable growth in service revenue.

According to MTN Group’s latest trading update, South African data revenue increased by 4.7% over the nine-month period and by 6% in the third quarter. Service revenue, however, grew by 1% year-on-year over nine months and was flat in the third quarter.

MTN Group chief executive officer Ralph Mupita said the South African business remained below its medium-term service revenue target.

“While MTN SA’s service revenue was flat in Q3 2026 and up 1.0% YoY, it remains below our medium-term target,” Mupita said.

Data consumption rises

MTN South Africa said network traffic increased by 27.9% during the first nine months of the year. Average monthly data use among postpaid customers rose by 31.9% to 32.8GB, while average monthly prepaid consumption increased by 28.9% to 5.2GB.

Smartphone penetration stood at 70.6%, highlighting the expansion of mobile internet access across the operator’s customer base.

Despite higher usage, prepaid revenue declined by 3% over the nine-month period and by 2.4% in the third quarter. The prepaid customer base fell by 6.9% to 27.4 million, while MTN South Africa’s total customer base decreased by 2.7% to 39 million.

MTN said it was encouraged by month-on-month improvement in prepaid trends and was focusing on building a healthier and more valuable prepaid customer base.

“We were however encouraged by the month-on-month improvement in prepaid trends,” Mupita said.

Profitability improves

MTN South Africa’s financial performance also showed signs of improvement. Third-quarter EBITDA increased by 7%, while the EBITDA margin expanded by 3.6 percentage points to 38.1%.

MTN attributed the improvement to early benefits from cost interventions. The company said it was working to restore South African service revenue growth to the low-to-mid single digits over the medium term.

It is also expanding home connectivity through fixed wireless access and fibre, while seeking to build on improved prepaid trends and cost reductions.

Regional performance varies

South Africa’s third-quarter data revenue growth was weaker than the growth reported in some other MTN markets. Data revenue increased by 31.4% in Nigeria and 39.9% in Ghana, compared with 6% in South Africa.

In Uganda, data revenue growth slowed to 7.8% in the third quarter from 17.5% in the preceding quarter. MTN said the slowdown was partly linked to unauthorised public Wi-Fi resellers drawing usage away from mobile data.

At group level, data accounted for 50.4% of MTN’s service revenue during the first nine months of 2026. The South African results nevertheless show a gap between rapidly rising data consumption and the revenue growth generated from that usage.