MTN Ghana has announced the payment of a final dividend of 11.5 pesewas per share to its shareholders for the 2021 financial year.
The amount is made up of the interim dividend of 3.0 pesewas declared by the Board after reviewing the half year performance of the company plus a 8.5 pesewas on ordinary shares approved by the Board at its fourth annual general meeting held in Accra on May 30, 2021.
Speaking at the annual general meeting, Board Chairman of the MTN Ghana, Ishmael Yamson, noted that this represents 70.6% of profit after tax and a 43.8% increase in dividend per share payout in 2021 over 2020.
“MTN Ghana recorded strong growth in service revenue (+28.5% YoY) and managed its costs prudently, which led to growth in profit after tax of 43.5% YoY to GHS2.0 billion. After reviewing the full year performance of the company in 2021, the Board shall be recommending a final dividend of 8.5 pesewas on ordinary shares to be approved by shareholders at today’s meeting. This is further to the interim dividend of 3.0 pesewas per share declared by the Board after reviewing the half year performance of the company. This brings the total dividend for the year 2021 to 11.5 pesewas per share. ” he said.
Speaking at the same event, Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh also outlined the company’s strategy to drive growth and efficiencies in their business on the back of rising macro environment challenges.
“In 2022, our areas of focus include improving customer experience across all services and regions to further enhance subscriber growth and usage of our services. We also plan to expand our 4G / 4G+ service by implementing 4G everywhere you go (i.e., 4G on every site) by the end of 2022 and scale up efforts in the digitalisation journey with a focus on MyMTN and the ayoba super app. Mobile Money ecosystem expansion will also be a key focus for us through innovations in advanced services and work to deepen the penetration of MoMo users within the base.
We forecast service revenue growth in the high teens (in percentage terms) over the medium-term from
the previous guidance of 13% to 15%. In addition, we will progress the execution of the expense efficiency
programme and our prudent approach to managing costs to deliver on our commitment of margin expansion. Execution of our Ambition 2025 strategy will continue, as we seek to build a platform business that enables broader digital ecosystem acceleration. We expect to make considerable progress on localisation of Scancom PLC and its subsidiary, MobileMoney Limited,” he said.
2021 Financial Performance
MTN Ghana recorded a significant increase in its profit after tax for last year. According to its 2021 Financial Statement, the profit went up by 43.5% to hit ¢2 billion.
Revenue went up by 28% to reach ¢7 billion. Its subscriber base increased by almost 4% from 2020 to hit 25.4 million in 2022.
MTN puts the subscriber base at 11 million on mobile money ending December 2021. Total Direct and Indirect Taxes paid by MTN during the period under review stood at ¢2.7 billion.