The Nation Newspaper

Tag: MTN

  • D’banj doles out millions of naira as CREAM clocks one

    D’banj doles out millions of naira as CREAM clocks one

    IT was a successful entrepreneur that met with the press on Wednesday, outside of his personal musical accomplishment.

    Dapo Oyebanjo, otherwise called D’banj, oozes benevolence, grinning from ear to ear, ready to dole out millions of naira at the Renaissance Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, last Wednesday, as the next set of beneficiaries await their rewards for participating in the Creative Reality Entertainment Arts Music (CREAM).

    It was the one year anniversary event of CREAM, his innovative digital talent hunt platform, in partnership with MTN.

    His excitement is understandable. Not only is he succeeding in the project that has boycotted the usual ‘godfatherism’ chain and lifted the talents of several youths across the country, who may not have the opportunity of being heard, D’banj took a loan of N50 million from the Bank of Industry, and paid back in less than one year. This was a record-setting feat to the DFI among other beneficiaries of its creative industry fund scheme.

    D’banj said he conceived the CREAM idea because “I was being inundated right, left and centre by people who wanted to ‘blow’. It was a time too that I wanted to reach out to those talents in Ogbomoso, Langtang and everywhere else who could not come to Lagos to achieve their dreams but have the talent and passion to do music.” He added, “I wanted a platform that can help find creative talent from anywhere in Africa and give them a fair chance of making their creative dreams come true, from the comfort of their homes.”

    CREAM, thus, started with a mission to offer a veritable platform for uncut musical talents across the country to have their songs recorded and released, shoot musical videos for deserving up and comers and help unknowns secure collaboration with established acts. At the outset in September 2016, there were only a few hundreds of tentative subscribers on the platform.

    By July 2017, D’banj sensationally revealed that the CREAM platform had grown into a staggering 2million subscriber base and is now worth an estimated $100million. While the first set of beneficiaries on the platform were Rayce, TK Swag, MKJ, Leke Benson and Legend Courage, the lives of many other subscribers have altered dramatically with cash prizes ranging from N50, 000 to N1million during the monthly draws.

    He also used the occasion of the anniversary to dispel insinuations that CREAM is a scam. “I have a great team of judges and A n R which includes Godwin Tom and Harrysongs, Ice Prince, Wande Coal, to help mentor the artistes we are bringing on board. So, it’s not a lottery platform, the lottery part of it is just an added incentive. The winners are usually chosen by judges so even if I help the artistes shoot a video, they still need to make money, look good and move around, and for those who have already received their money, they know it is not a scam.”

    Speaking on the challenge of the initiative, he said the widespread distrust in the country makes some winners doubt even their own winnings.

    “Some people have been registering on the CREAM platform and winning prizes ranging from a million naira to N50, 000, but I noticed that whenever we call the artistes to inform them of winning huge amounts of money, they become scared and don’t bother coming to claim their prizes, it is understandable because of the present situation of the country. They think it is a scam, they think it’s unreal, but I am here to tell you that it is not a scam, I have invited them here for you to see.”

  • MTN, partners support Benue flood victims

    The MTN Foundation has joined ongoing efforts to provide assistance to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) left homeless by the flood that recently devastated Benue state.

    Representatives of the Foundation in collaboration with its PR agency – Brooks & Blake, and video production company – IBST media, visited the International Market Camp for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Makurdi. The camp was set up following the floods and recently registered 4,775 persons, displaced and in need of relief materials.

    Commenting on the importance of public-private partnerships, Sola Fijabi, Principal Partner, for PR agency, Brooks and Blake Nigeria said: “The efforts of our government in alleviating the challenges faced must be appreciated. We must realise that the government cannot do this alone, and this makes it necessary for private organisations to pro-actively contribute towards addressing these issues.”

    The team met with affected individuals and families, and chronicled their stories of sorrow, hope, and gratitude.

    “Like stories of devastation in other parts of the world have prompted great acts of kindness and support, we must tell our story in a compelling way. Highlighting a common humanity and ongoing relief efforts in a way that forever remains indelible in our memories, and prompting more of our countrymen to step up and lend a helping hand,” said Remi Ogunpitan, Managing Director IBST Media and media partner on the donations.

    Sleep and cooking kits, including mattresses and pillows, kerosene stoves, non-perishable food items and other relevant materials, were distributed to ease the present circumstances.

    Speaking on the visit, Mrs. Blessing Amanze, the Regional Trade Marketing Manager of MTN Nigeria, said: “MTN has an enduring commitment to our people, our customers, and our country. We stand with our brothers and sisters – the people and government of Benue State, at this difficult time. We sympathise with you, and hope that this token helps provide some much needed comfort.”

  • MTN re-opens Unilag’s digital library

    MTN Foundation, under its Universities Connect initiative has reopened the digital library donated by the Foundation at the University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos (UNILAG).

    An MTN Foundation delegation led by its Chairman, Board of Directors, Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, commissioned and presented the facility to the school’s Vice Chancellor,  Prof. Rahman Bello at an event witnessed by members of the University Senate and MTN Nigeria management team.

    Built in 2005, the fully furnished and air-conditioned digital library is equipped with 128 networked computers, running on Microsoft 365 which was donated by Microsoft Philanthropies. The library is equipped with an alternative source of electricity for a seamless digital library experiences. It also has three laser jet printers, a server, and Vsat-based Internet connectivity. Other universities that have benefited for the UniversitiesConnect initiative include Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State; University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State and University of Benin, Edo State.

    Speaking at the event, Prince Adelusi-Adeluyi, expressed delight on the fact that the project has been recommissioned and he urged the students to collaborate with the university to ensure that the library is well managed.

     

  • MTN seeks greater space for girls in ICT

    Nigeria’s largest mobile operator, MTN has thrown its weight behind the global campaign by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to encourage more girls and young women to consider careers in the ICT industry recognising that they are critical to the sustainability of ICT in Nigeria.

    This commitment was made by the company’s General Manager in charge of Regulatory Affairs, Oyeronke Oyetunde, during the celebration of the ‘International Girls in ICT Day 2017’ organised by ‘eBusiness Life’ magazine.

    Commenting on the theme of this year’s campaign – ‘Expanding horizons, changing attitudes,’ Oyetunde said the empowerment of the female folk has taken on a new urgency especially with many countries now forecasting a shortage of skilled ICT professionals within the next ten years. “This is why it is even more vital that we attract young women into the technology space, which will not only empower them, but also serve as a springboard to overcome cultural and social barriers that may prevent them from accessing life-changing opportunities. We need to create these large scale opportunities if we are to sustain healthy growth rates for the overall benefit of the industry,” she concluded.

     

  • MTN appoints new corporate relations exec

    MTN appoints new corporate relations exec

    The management of MTN Nigeria has announced the appointment of Tobechukwu Nkemdilim Okigbo as its new Corporate Relations Executive.

    In the role, Okigbo will lead MTN’s strategic approach towards enhancing its corporate reputation, particularly as regard engaging and managing critical stakeholders, in addition to projecting the company’s corporate citizenship status.

    Reputed for his exemplary work ethic and result-oriented approach to work, Okigbo is well-positioned to add significant value to MTN as he brings an excellent track record and vast experience to the role.

    With close to 30 years professional experience in the legal and telecoms sectors, Okigbo joined MTN from Smile Communications where he was Chief Corporate Services Officer.

  • MTN to go ahead with Nigeria listing

    MTN Group has confirmed it will proceed with plans to list on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) over the coming months up to 2018.

    The mobile operator presented an improved performance over the past six months in its interim financial results, despite what it described as challenging macro-economic conditions in many of its markets “with Nigeria, continuing to experience weaker naira as well as hard currency liquidity challenges.”

    Its Group President and CEO, Rob Shuter, who assumed office in March this year, said the 6.7 per cent rise in group revenue (underpinned by a 10.8 per cent growth in revenue for Nigeria) is a good start to the year.

    “I think we have made good progress and we have set out very clearly what we are asking of ourselves. We also need to get better at managing the kind of big issues and events that really come with managing a large number of complex geographies. I think we have made a respectable star,” he said.

    According to ITWeb, the telco said its Nigerian business is continuing to make progress with preparations to list on the NSE and should have the task completed in 2018 subject to market conditions.

    The telco added that Nigeria is also the market it has chosen along with South Africa for the rollout of its operational execution programme called Project IGNITE.

    MTN’s Net Promoter Score, which measures the likelihood of customers to recommend a company’s products or services, stands at 13 per cent in Nigeria – although it is much higher in the telco’s other key markets including Iran (33 per cent) and South Africa (75 per cent).

    Its Group Chief Financial Officer, Ralph Mupita, said the use of constant currency to measure financial performance provides a better visibility of the underlying operating performance of MTN.

    “If you look at all our operations across the 23 markets relative to the rand over the period, they have all weakened and so the first major impact of this is that you will see that our reported results are lower than our constant currency results if you look at revenue, EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation) and other main KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) particularly in Nigeria, where the weaker naira has had a significant impact on network opex (operation expenditure) and has resulted in lower margins as you will have seen at the end of December 2016,” he said.

    While Nigeria EBITDA declined 15 per cent over the six months to 30 June in rand terms, driven by the naira devaluation and network opex according to Mupita, MTN reported service revenue growth of 11 per cent in the country over the same period.

    Overall MTN, experienced a 3.6 per cent drop in subscribers to 231,8 million over the six month period, with Nigeria and Ghana recording the biggest drop. The number of MTN subscribers in Nigeria has decreased by 14.3 per cent to 53.1 million.

    Shuter emphasised the telco’s unshaken belief in the potential of its Nigeria business which has historically been its most profitable market.

    “One of the challenges for the Nigerian economy is that it is very much resource focused unlike South Africa which is a much more diversified economy, but things are looking better. Even though the oil price has not moved much, the production has increased, we see some lift coming back into the market; we are seeing more availability of foreign exchange for the kinds of things that we need to do there. Our revenues were up 11 per cent, data is up 70 per cent. It is a vibrant market and I think MTN is well placed there. I’ve actually been encouraged by our performance there in the last couple of quarters. I think things will look a lot better going forward,” Shutter said.

  • MTN’s subscribers dip

    • Grows Nigeria data revenue to +70.4% 

    The MTN Group’s subscriber numbers dip by 3.6 per cent to a total of 231.8 million across its 22 operations in Africa and the Middle East, its group interim results for the six months ended 30 June, released yesterday showed.

    The biggest drag on customer numbers for the half-year came from the West and Central Africa region, which dropped 8.5per cent to 102.3 million. The most noticeable impact came from Nigeria, which saw subscriber numbers drop by 14.3per cent to 53.1 million, and Ghana, where the subscriber base declined by 10.3per cent to 17.3 million. However, subscribers in South Africa ticked up by 1.5per cent to 31.2 million.

    But its  Chief Executive Officer, Rob Shuter, said the company’s headline earnings came in at 3.9 billion rand ($294.40 million), or 212 cents per share, in the six months to end June compared with a loss of 4.9 billion rand, or 271 cents per share, a year earlier.

    “These numbers give us hope for the future. It is a very encouraging platform upon which to build our stratey. In Nigeria we have a +70.4% data revenue growth,” Shuter said

    According to ITWeb, MTN blamed the group’s “initiative to modernise subscriber definitions to reflect the business’s changing mix of revenue streams” for the decline. The implementation of the modernised definitions is still continuing but is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

    The group saw headline earnings per share (HEPS) swing to a profit of 217c compared to a 271c headline loss per share reported in the comparable period last year. The previous results were heavily impacted by the group’s Nigerian regulatory fine which reduced HEPS by 474c (454c of the fine fully expensed and 20c of the interest unwind). In the current period, MTN says the Nigerian regulatory fine interest unwind reduced HEPS by 24c.

    In June 2016, MTN agreed to a settlement of N330 billion ($1.671 billion at the time) to be paid to the Nigerian government in six instalments over three years. The telco was sanctioned over failure to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered SIM cards on its network in 2015.

    Group revenue for the first six months of the current financial year decreased by 18.5 per cent to R64.3 billion. In constant currency terms, however, revenue grew by 6.7 per cent, underpinned by 10.8 per cent growth in revenue in Nigeria and a 5.2 per cent organic growth in service revenue in its home country. Group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell 27.7per cent to R21.2 billion (up 3.1per cent in constant currency terms).

    The South African business once again produced strong results “supported by a strong prepaid performance, network expansion and a strengthened leadership team”.

    Total revenue in South Africa increased by 1.6 per cent to R20.2 billion. Service revenue increased by 5.2 per cent on an organic basis to R16.8 billion, supported by strong growth in data revenue and digital revenue, up 18.5 per cent (organic) and 37.6per cent respectively.

  • Senate withdraws report acquitting MTN of forex scam

    Senate withdraws report acquitting MTN of forex scam

    The Senate has withdrawn a report that largely exonerated South African telecoms giant, MTN, of accusations of illegally repatriating $14 billion and rebuked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for regulatory failures.

    The report, presented to the Senate on Thursday, was almost immediately sent back for further work because it did not capture possible infractions by all stakeholders, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

    The upper legislative chamber agreed in September to investigate whether Africa’s biggest telecoms firm unlawfully repatriated $13.92 billion from Nigeria – its most lucrative market which generates a third of its revenue – between 2006 and 2016.

    MTN, which has denied any wrongdoing, could not immediately be reached for comment.

    The crux of the allegation is that MTN did not obtain certificates declaring it had invested foreign currency in Nigeria within a 24-hour deadline stipulated in a 1995 law, making the repatriation of returns on the investments illegal.

    The Senate formed a committee to investigate the allegations against the South African company, the CBN and commercial banks such as Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc.

    The committee’s report did not recommend any punitive measures against MTN.

    Instead, the report rebuked the CBN for its failure to monitor fund transfers to and from the country, calling its oversight of banks “inadequate.”

  • Nigerians embrace 9mobile, port in droves to network – Report

    Nigerians embrace 9mobile, port in droves to network – Report

    The Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) monthly porting report released through the regulator’s website on Thursday revealed that subscribers from other networks migrated to the rebranded 9mobile, Nigeria’s fourth largest telecommunication company.

    The NCC’s “Incoming and Outgoing Porting Activities of Mobile Network Operators Report” for the month of May 2017, showed that 9mobile led the other four telecom operators in the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) activities for the month in review.

    NCC revealed that out of the total 39,535 porting activities in May, 19,816 were “Incoming Porting Activities”, while 19,719 were “Outgoing Porting Activities”.

    9mobile recorded the highest incoming porting activity (users leaving other networks to 9mobile) with a massive 15,253 telecom users leaving others to join the rebranded telecom company. Airtel had the second highest incoming porting activity with 2,597 subscriber migrations.

    MTN was third on the incoming porting migration table with 1,245 telecom users while Globacom had the least incoming migration figures on the table.

    The report further showed that 9mobile also excelled on the outgoing porting migration table (users leaving 9mobile to other networks) with only 1,826 subscribers of 9mobile leaving to other networks.

    This means 9mobile recorded the lowest outgoing porting when compared with the other operators. Globacom recorded the second lowest outgoing migration with 4,786 subscribers.

    Airtel recorded 6,540 outgoing migrations while MTN’s outgoing subscriber migration was 6,567, making the network topping the table with the highest telecom users leaving the network.

  • MTN: we reported swap fraud to police

    Teleccoms giant MTN Nigeria yesterday said it hinted the police of “unusual level of swap activities” which led to the arrest and the ongoing investigation.

    In a statememt yesterday, the firm which commended the police for doinga good job, restated that the allged mastermind of the crime were not its workers but “employees of an independent but regulated third-party trade partner who owns and operates the Connect store where the incident took place”

    The statement said: “Our attention has been drawn to inaccuracies being reported by certain media regarding some individuals, alleged to be MTN employees, involved in a syndicated crime resulting in fraudulent bank transactions.

    “We wish to point out that the arrest stemmed from MTN’s report of an unusual level of swap activity to the Nigeria Police. This breach was perpetrated by employees of an independent but regulated third-party trade partner who owns and operates the Connect store where the incident took place.

    “We are appalled by the situation and condemn it in its entirety. The security and well-being of our customers is of paramount importance, and as such we will continue working at strengthening our governance structures and processes, and will proactively report suspicious activity once it occurs.  We (MTN and all our regulated third-party trade partners) are committed to protecting our existing and potential customers from all present and emerging threats and will continue to work closely with the security agencies to ensure appropriate action when there is evidence of misconduct – as was done in this instance.

    “We commend the Nigeria Police Force for their response and handling of this matter and pledge our support to seeing it through to conclusion. MTN remains firmly committed to the highest standards of integrity, ethical behaviour and good corporate citizenship.”