MTN Nigeria Communications Plc’s employee costs nearly doubled in the first nine months of 2026, rising faster than revenue. A 64% rally in the operator’s share price was the main reason, because it increased the value of share awards promised to staff.
Employee costs rose 96.5% to N186.80 billion in the nine months to September 30, from N95.05 billion a year earlier, according to Note 8 of the company’s unaudited financial statements.
Revenue grew 23.6% to N4.61 trillion over the same period. Share-based expense, the cost of staff share incentive schemes, rose 272% to N65.18 billion from N17.51 billion. The company said the increase “was driven by appreciation in MTN Nigeria share price”.
What the Average Employee Costs
MTN Nigeria’s 2025 audited accounts show 2,001 full-time staff at group level at the end of 2025, and 1,862 at company level. MoneyCentral’s estimates below assume the group headcount stayed at 2,001.
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Salaries and wages: about N42.5 million per employee for the nine months, or about N4.72 million a month. That compares with about N3.57 million a month in 9M 2025 on the same headcount, a 32% increase.
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Annualised salary: about N56.6 million per employee.
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Total employee cost including share awards: about N93.4 million per employee for the nine months, or about N10.37 million a month.
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Share-based expense alone: about N32.6 million per employee for the period, or N3.62 million a month. That is almost as much as the average monthly salary.
These figures are averages. Senior staff with the largest share awards likely receive a disproportionate share of the incentive pool. The 2025 accounts showed 659 employees earning at least N29.5 million a year, up from 334 in 2024.
How Share Awards Affected Profit
Share-based expense covers MTN Nigeria’s Performance Share Plans and its Employee Stock Ownership Plan, run through Vetiva Trustee. Part of these schemes is settled in cash, so the cost depends on the share price. The statements value those awards at the September 30 closing price of N837, against N511 at the end of 2025.
Share-based expense accounted for 51.9% of the N91.75 billion increase in employee costs, on MoneyCentral calculations. It took up 34.9% of the staff bill, up from 18.4% a year earlier. Excluding share awards, employee costs rose 56.9%.
The share-based payments liability more than doubled to N91.02 billion from N44.35 billion at the end of 2025.
MTN Nigeria settled N11.0 billion of awards in cash during the period and N6.70 billion in shares.
A total of 18.17 million shares vested, of which 8.85 million were settled in cash. The company also bought N16.97 billion of its own shares for the employee scheme.
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