MTN Group Ltd., reduced spending plans for the full year to focus on preserving cash and maintaining networks as Africa’s biggest wireless carrier by sales navigates the Covid-19 pandemic.
MTN will invest 21 billion rand ($1.1 billion) to 22 billion rand in 2020, compared with an earlier guidance of 28.3 billion rand, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement on Thursday. The group stuck with a medium-term growth forecast and said it’s committed to an asset-disposal plan kicked off last year.
Telecom firms have been among the more resilient to the coronavirus crisis as governments order populations to work and entertain themselves at home to contain the pandemic. MTN reported data-traffic surges in three of its biggest markets, South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana, from the end of February.