The board of directors of MTN Nigeria Communications Plc (NSE – MTNN), has approved an interim dividend of N3.50 per 2kobo ordinary share for the period ended 30 June 2020.
The proposed dividend is subject to appropriate withholding tax, and will be paid to shareholders whose names appear in the register of members, as at the close of business on 14 August 2020. This is according to the corporate actions announcement signed by the Uto Ukpnah, the Company Secretary.
Key dates
14 August 2020 – Qualification date
24 August 2020 – Payment date. The payment will be made directly to the bank accounts of shareholders who qualified for the dividend and have completed the e-dividend registration with the company registrar.
MTNN registrar is United Securities Limited, Plot 9, Amodu Ojikutu Street, Off Saka Tinubu, Victoria Island Lagos Nigeria.
The share price of MTNN closed at N117.90 on the last trading day. The dividend yield at this will be 2.97%. It is important to note that this dividend yield did not exclude the withholding tax and buy/sell charges.
MTNN grew its revenue by 12.5% to N638.075 billion from N566.946 billion in H1 2019. Nevertheless, profit after tax dropped by 4.7% to N94.877 billion from N99.537 with EPS settling at N4.66 according to the unadited results for the six months ended 30 June 2020 released by the company.
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The reasons behind the decline in profit is due to 17.5% increase in expenses to N331.014 billion from N264.626 billion and 26.22% rise in finance cost to NN72.550 billion from N57.481 billion in H1 2019 among others.
The major components of the revenue in H1 2020 are;
- Voice revenue – N432.208 billion, 2.8% rise from N420.603 in H1 2019
- Data – N154.082 billion, 57.6% rise from N97.751 billion in H1 2019
- Fintech – N21.346 billion, 29.6% increase from N16.464 billion in H 2019
- Digital – N4.258 billion, 121.8% rise from N1.920 billion H1 2019
- Other service revenues – N25.097 billion, 13.8% decline from N29.126 billion in H1 2019.
MTNN recorded a 15.6% growth YoY in mobile subscriber base to 71.1 million providing support for voice revenue. Voice revenue, accounting for accounting for 67.9% of service revenue and up by 2.8%. It remained in growth in H1, in an environment where the effect of lockdowns impacted traffic, particularly in April and May.
Data revenue, making up 24.2% of service revenue, continued to grow, achieving 57.6% increase. This was realized through data subscribers, 4G penetration and enhanced network capacity to support traffic growth due to lockdown with data subscribers growing by 40.0% to 29 million. Data traffic rose by 141.2% YoY, (27.2% QoQ) and usage increased by 76.6% YoY (23.3% QoQ).
Written by;
Ifunanya Ikueze
