MTN Nigeria targets ₦6.24T revenue in 2026 after ₦5.2T 2025 rebound
MTN Nigeria rebounded strongly in 2025, posting revenue of ₦5.2 trillion ($3.77 billion) and profit of ₦1.1 trillion ($796.77 million) after a bruising 2024 defined by forex losses. The turnaround was fueled by a 50% tariff increase approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission, stabilising macro conditions, and surging data demand. For 2026, the telecom giant projects medium-term service revenue growth of at least low-20% annually, targeting a baseline of ₦6.24 trillion ($4.52 billion) with ₦7 trillion ($5.07 billion) within reach.
Data has decisively overtaken voice as MTN’s primary revenue driver. In 2025, data revenue reached ₦2.78 trillion ($2.01 billion) versus voice at ₦1.85 trillion ($1.34 billion). Since 2020, data revenue has grown 736.9% compared to voice’s 106.5%. National data consumption rose 35.7% in 2025 to 13.25 million terabytes, with average usage per subscriber hitting 13.1GB. MTN is scaling home broadband (4.2 million subscribers) and investing in fibre and fixed wireless access, betting homes will dominate future digital workloads.
Fintech remains a tiny but fast-growing segment: core fintech revenue was ₦10.9 billion (0.21% of total) in 2025, up 186.8%. MoMo PSB has 3.7 million active wallets and 50% more agents, but still trails OPay and PalmPay. MTN seeks a lending license to unlock value and hasn’t ruled out acquisitions in the sector.
Key risks loom: The tariff boost will wane by Q2 2026, and growth guidance assumes inflation stays below 20% and the exchange rate remains between ₦1,400–₦1,700/$ despite Middle East tensions. More critically, MTN suffered 1,002 major network outages in 2025—the most among major telcos—and Nigeria ranks 85th globally for mobile speeds despite operators spending over $1 billion on upgrades. If network quality doesn’t improve, subscriber satisfaction could become a bigger constraint than revenue targets.
Will MTN’s data-driven growth strategy overcome persistent service quality issues to hit its ₦7 trillion ambition by 2026?
SOURCE: https://techcabal.com/2026/03/30/how-mtn-plans-to-reach-over-%e2%82%a66-trillion-in-revenue-by-2026/