2025 Profit Spike For MTN & Airtel As Data Boom

MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa are placing large bets on bytes over voice because data revenue now makes up about half of total revenue.

What was once a service with additional value is now the main driver of growth and profit expansion.

However, one dilemma faces investors as tariffs increase, consumer behavior changes, and digital infrastructure advances:

Will MTN Nigeria be able to overcome its retained losses and assist Airtel in maintaining its dollar dividend payout as a result of this data shift?

How each telco uses data to change its financial future holds the answers. First up is MTN Nigeria.

With a N133.6 billion profit after taxes in Q1 2025, MTN Nigeria made a significant reversal after revealing a startling N440 billion loss after taxes in 2024, mostly as a result of foreign exchange shocks that damaged the bottom line.

The sharp rise in data revenue was another impetus, even if the currency markets’ stabilization and fintech’s revenue growth also played a role.

A significant structural change from the voice-led years, MTN reported N1.59 trillion in data revenue in FY 2024, increasing 49% year over year and accounting for 47% of overall income.

With data sales of N528.98 billion, or 50% of overall revenue for the quarter, that trend carried over into Q1 2025.

Metrics from subscribers support the trend:

• At 47.7 million, active data users increased by 7%.
• Year-over-year, data traffic increased by 42.9%.
• In Q4, average data use per subscriber increased by 33.6% to 11.2GB and then to 13.2GB.

As stated by the business:

“A rise in the number of active data users, higher use, and improvements to our network’s quality and coverage all contributed to the data revenue performance.

We kept pushing for 4G adoption and smartphone penetration while adjusting prices to boost revenue growth.

MTN’s ongoing investment in digital infrastructure enabled these pricing changes as well as an enhanced user experience.

Data speeds have improved with expanded 4G and now early 5G rollout in some areas, enabling the corporation to raise monetization per megabyte.

What impact does this have on the bottom line, then?

Because incremental costs per gigabyte decrease as traffic scales, MTN’s gross margin on data services is substantially larger than its gross margin on voice services. In other words, increased utilization equates to increased profitability after the infrastructure is established.

MTN could report more than N2 trillion in data revenue during FY 2025 if the Q1 2025 trajectory continues.

Given the EBITDA margin projection of “at least mid-40%,” MTN’s EBITDA from total revenue this year might range from N900 billion to N1 trillion.

You can see how strong the data engine is when you compare that to the FY 2024 EBITDA of N769.7 billion.

MTN might be looking at a full-year net profit above N400 billion, effectively reversing the whole loss of 2024, if depreciation, amortization, and finance expenses stay constant and the value of the naira stays relatively unchanged.

In addition to eliminating retained losses, it would put the telco in a position to start paying dividends again by 2026 at the latest, or maybe before if the board decides.

With trailing 12-month earnings per share (EPS) of N5.96 as of Q1 2025, MTN’s price-to-earnings ratio is presently 53.56x. 

Even while there are still issues with infrastructure costs, capital intensity, and foreign exchange volatility, the telco’s return to profitability raises the possibility that its worst days may be over.

In the upcoming quarters, astute investors should keep an eye on operational margins, user growth, and ARPU data. These are the levers that might turn MTN back into a dividend-paying powerhouse after it has been in survival mode.

Similar to MTN, Airtel Nigeria is using data to propel its operations. Because of currency rate problems, its headline numbers can appear bad, but the true situation is quite different.

Data income for Airtel Nigeria fell 26% to $483 million in the year ended March 2025, while reported revenue fell 30% to $1.045 billion.

But the lower naira is primarily to blame for it. When currency effects are removed and performance is examined in constant terms, revenue increased by 36% and data grew by an astounding 45%.

“More smartphones, wider 4G coverage, and better network capacity support our data business, which continues to be a key growth engine,” the company said. 

Data now accounts for 44% of Airtel Nigeria’s overall revenue, which is not far behind MTN Nigeria’s 47% in 2024 and 50% in Q1 2025, and only somewhat less than 46% the year before.

Additionally, Airtel’s client base grew. The average income per user increased to $1.9 in the most recent quarter, indicating that more people are using more data and paying a little bit more for it. It also gained almost 1.7 million new data users, increasing the total to 29.1 million.

Compared to its $89 million loss the previous year, Airtel Africa reported a $328 million profit after taxes for FY 2025.

How may data lead to financial gain?

Due to exchange losses, data produced $483 million in FY 2025 in Nigeria alone. However, it was a 45% increase in constant currency, suggesting solid underlying performance.

Even before accounting for FX gains or tariff increases, Airtel Nigeria could make over $550 million from data in the current fiscal year if this growth trend continues and ARPU grows moderately to $2 by Q4.

Additionally, by next year, data alone may make up 60–70% of its operating profit due to the increase in data traffic. Even in the event that voice or mobile money slows down, Airtel can easily pay its dividend because of this position.

In fact, Airtel Africa has already demonstrated this confidence by announcing a final dividend of $0.04 per share for FY 2025.

As of June 5, 2025, Airtel Africa’s share price on the Nigerian Exchange was N2,372.50, representing a 10% year-to-date increase. In contrast to MTN Nigeria, which trades at a 53.56x price-to-earnings ratio, it trades at a reasonable 26x.