MTN Nigeria closed the first half of 2026 with a balance sheet that looks nothing like it did two years ago.
Service revenue rose 25.9% and EBITDA jumped 39.2% to ₦1.7 trillion, lifting the EBITDA margin to 55.9% — inside the company’s own guidance range.
Free cash flow rose 73.9% to ₦712.7 billion, and the board lifted the interim dividend 73.3% to ₦26 per share.
There was also a big shift is on the liabilities side.
MTN Nigeria has gone from ₦719.5 billion of net debt at end-2024 to ₦116.3 billion of net cash by mid-2026 — and every debt left on the books is now naira-denominated and fixed-rate, erasing the currency risk that hit earnings during Nigeria’s 2023-2024 FX crisis, according to data from MTN Nigeria’s Half Year (H1) 2026 Results Presentation.
That balance sheet, backed by Aaa/AAA ratings from Agusto & Co. and GCR, is funding a pivot toward home broadband, fintech and AI-ready data centres, for MTN’s next growth phase under “Ambition 2030.”
Home Broadband: MTN Already Owns 90% of Nigeria’s Fibre
Home broadband is the first of Ambition 2030’s growth platforms, and MTN’s pitch to investors is that it is already the dominant infrastructure owner in an under-penetrated market.
Roughly 90% of all fibre connections in Nigeria run through MTN’s network, and the company is layering fixed wireless access (5G FWA) on top of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) to extend serviceability beyond where fibre alone is economical.
Because fixed broadband penetration in Nigeria remains low relative to mobile penetration, management is treating the category as a multi-year growth opportunity.
Fintech
MTN’s fintech unit put up the fastest growth numbers in the entire H1 2026 report. Core fintech revenue — which excludes Xtratime airtime/data-credit commission income, hit by a temporary Q2 service suspension — rose 132.0% to ₦8.7 billion.
Active mobile money wallets grew 88.8% to 5.0 million, and customer deposits held in MoMo wallets rose 42.6% to ₦14.0 billion.
Management’s stated fintech priorities for the back half of Ambition 2030 are to scale wallet adoption, expand distribution into rural areas, deepen ecosystem engagement, and — notably — “advance licensing and structural separation initiatives.”
It signals that MTN may eventually spin fintech into a more formally regulated, standalone entity, mirroring what MTN Group has done with mobile money units elsewhere on the continent.
For investors, the fintech unit is still small in absolute terms — ₦8.7 billion of core revenue against a ₦2.99 trillion group total — but the growth rate and the deposit base (₦14.0 billion and rising 42.6% a year) suggest an emerging financial-services business layered on top of MTN’s existing distribution network.
Digital Infrastructure: The Data Centre Bet
Ambition 2030’s third platform — digital infrastructure — is where MTN is making its most ambitious pivot, from network operator to infrastructure landlord for Africa’s AI buildout.
MTN Group has already broken ground on an AI-enabled data centre in Nigeria under its Genova unit, at an estimated investment of roughly $240 million, and has confirmed Nigeria and South Africa as the group’s primary hubs for next-generation, greenfield AI-ready data centre development.
Nigeria’s Dabengwa facility, a Tier III data centre MTN launched in mid-2025, is already slated for an upgrade to Tier IV, and the group has signaled it intends to lease capacity not just to enterprise customers but potentially to global hyperscalers.
Guidance vs. Delivery: MTN Is Beating Its Own Targets
MTN Nigeria’s medium-term guidance for FY2026-2028 called for service revenue growth of “at least low 20%,” an EBITDA margin in the “mid-to-high 50%” range, and stable capex intensity. Six months into that window, the company is running ahead on every metric.
MTN Nigeria guided Service revenue growth of at least 20% for FY 2026 – 2028 and delivered 25.9% actual in H1, 2026. EBITDA margin of Mid-high 50% and actual delivered of 55.9% and Capex intensity was guided as stable but MTN delivered a Capex intensity of 20.7%, down 5.1 percentage points year-on-year.
Capex intensity falling even as capex spending rose 1.2% to ₦620.5 billion implies MTN is generating more revenue per unit of network investment — a sign of past infrastructure spend (fibre, towers, spectrum) now converting into operating leverage rather than requiring fresh outlay.
MTN Nigeria stock closed trading at ₦845 per share on Friday August 07th, for a market capitalisation of ₦17.74 trillion. The stock is up +89.4% in the past year.
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