It has been revealed that of the about N1.06 trillion revenue made from Nigeria in 2018 by the South African telecom giant MTN Communication, N150.7billion was from data services alone. This lifted the company’s revenue to about 15percent, having grown its active data users from 4.5 million customers to 18.7 million within the period.

An exclusive source revealed to ICT Monitor that the firm’s digital services fetched it N26.6 billion, or three per cent of its entire revenue, which was through subscription model optimised to improve customer experience while Financial Technology contributions to the revenue was about N28.6 billion.

With 58.2 million subscribers, the firm’s voice revenue climbed by 18.7 per cent, contributing 76 per cent or N783.1 billion of its revenue in Nigeria.

The firm disclosed that it invested N184.2 billion last year to increased population coverage to 70 per cent, while extended its 4G coverage to 14 cities in the country.

While the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), put access gap in the country at about 190, where about 33.7 million people are yet to be connected, MTN boasted that it is exclusively serving 20 million Nigerians in underserved areas of the country.

The company said over 16 million people with no airtime connect with their friends and families using MTN Borrow Me Credit each month.

Group Chief Executive Officer, Rob Shuter averred that they recognise the obligation to do more as to whom much is given, much is required. He noted that they have so many infrastructures, assets and ability hence their taking so very much of the responsibilities to are doing.

In the areas of enabling and supporting broader economic development, MTN claimed that it enabled over one billion rapid and expedient transactions via the USSD in 2018, and enhanced the services of over 50,000 Point of Sales (PoS) terminals in Nigeria. It boasted of having over 24,000km of fibre optics backbone supporting several Internet Service Providers.

The firm said it has connected over 850 large corporate, over 100 public sector, and over 800,000 small businesseswith greater reach and efficiency. MTN said over 12,000 vehicles (3,500 corporate and 8,500 SMEs) subscribed to fleet and vehicle tracking services, while 100 universities, polytechnics and colleges are accessing high capacity Internet.

In his comments MTN Nigeria CEO, Ferdie Moolman, said: “In 2018, we rebuilt the base; adding another six million Nigerians to our network, giving a total of 58 million people access to worldwide communication services.

“This growth was built on our sustained focus on customer centric delivery, ensuring that customers get much more value for their money. This included the deployment of proactive interventions to improve customer experience, together with the enhancement of network quality and coverage, and the optimisation of our services portfolio.

“We also enabled an additional eightmillion people to access the possibilities that the internet provides, bringing our total data subscriber base to 44 million, of which 18.7 million use more than five megabytes per month. We are now even better positioned to ensure that everyone can access the benefits of a modern connected life.”