MTN Nigeria’s service revenue returned to sequential growth in the third quarter, rising 8.4% from the preceding three months as subscriber additions and heavier internet usage strengthened demand, Chief Executive Officer Karl Toriola said.
Data revenue increased 12.1% quarter on quarter and accounted for more than 80% of the sequential increase in service revenue, Toriola said during the Nov. 2 results call monitored by MoneyCentral.
Data represented about 61% of revenue in the quarter.
The performance points to an increasingly volume-led growth model: more customers joining the network, more adopting smartphones and existing users consuming more data.
That gives investors a clearer measure of underlying demand than revenue growth driven primarily by tariff increases.
Subscribers and Usage Rise Together
MTN Nigeria added 2.5 million subscribers in the third quarter, taking its subscriber base, measured on a 90-day revenue-generating basis, to 94.7 million.
Monthly usage per active data subscriber reached 17.2 gigabytes in the quarter, up 12.7% from the second quarter, Toriola said. Average monthly usage over the first nine months was 15.3 gigabytes.
“Revenue per customer is also rising while we keep adding customers,” he said, pointing to a stronger blended average revenue per user.
Voice revenue rose 9.3% quarter on quarter, supported by subscriber growth and targeted customer offers, even as customers increasingly move from traditional network calls to internet-based voice services.
Toriola described voice as resilient and cash generative. More subscribers and targeted propositions were more than offsetting a decline in minutes used per subscriber.
“We continue to invest in coverage, capacity, and quality to support demand and improve customer experience,” Toriola said.
The third-quarter rebound gives MTN Nigeria three identifiable growth drivers—subscriber additions, smartphone adoption and usage—and a voice business that continues to contribute.
Sustaining that combination will depend on delivering enough network capacity and quality to turn rising customer demand into durable shareholder returns.
MTN Nigeria shares have a one-year return of 74.1%.
MTN Nigeria Communications Plc Group financial results for the nine months ended 30 September 2026 showed service revenue up 23.7% to N4.6 trillion as Profit after tax (PAT) rose 55.30 percent to N1.16 trillion, from N750.20 billion as at September 2025.
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