MTN Group Limited

What does MTN do?

MTN is Africa's largest mobile operator. It provides voice and data services to 307.2 million customers in 16 markets and runs the MoMo mobile money platform used by 69.5 million monthly active customers.

Is MTN publicly traded?

Yes. MTN Group trades on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange under ticker MTN. Subsidiaries in Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda are also locally listed.

Where is MTN headquartered?

MTN is headquartered in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa, where it was founded as M-Cell in 1994.

What is MTN's revenue?

The group reported FY2025 service revenue of R218.5 billion and total revenue of R226.7 billion, up more than 20 percent as African currencies stabilized.

Does MTN operate outside Africa?

Its operations are concentrated in Africa plus an associate investment in Iran's Irancell. It exited Afghanistan and several smaller markets in 2024.

MTN traces to M-Cell, founded in Johannesburg in 1994 after winning one of South Africa's two new cellular licenses at the end of apartheid. M-Cell listed on the JSE in 1995 and spent the late 1990s consolidating its domestic position.

The defining move came in 2001, when the company, rebranded as MTN, won a license in Nigeria. The Nigerian operation grew explosively into the group's largest market and one of the most profitable mobile businesses in Africa, funding expansion into more than twenty markets across Africa and the Middle East.

The 2010s brought both scale and friction. Nigeria hit the company with a record $5.2 billion fine in 2015 over unregistered SIM cards, later settled for about $1.7 billion, an episode that became a case study in African regulatory risk. Other markets periodically challenged license renewals, taxes, and localization requirements.

Under Mupita the group executed an asset realization program, selling tower portfolios to infrastructure companies and exiting difficult markets. In 2024 it completed exits from Afghanistan, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea-Conakry, and it signed a landmark agreement bringing Mastercard in as a minority investor in the MoMo fintech business at a multi-billion dollar valuation.

Fiscal 2025 was a strong year: service revenue rose 22.9 percent to R218.5 billion, and profit rebounded sharply as the Nigerian naira stabilized after earlier devaluations. In November 2025 the group reorganized into five operating units: South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Southern and East Africa, and Francophone Africa.

MTN publishes an integrated annual report with detailed ESG disclosure and runs programs across digital inclusion, climate commitments including net-zero targets for its operations, and youth skills development through the MTN Foundation. Its material social impact is connectivity itself: the company provides communications and basic financial services to hundreds of millions of people in markets with limited banking infrastructure.

MTN consistently ranks as Africa's most valuable telecom brand in the Brand Finance Africa ranking and has appeared on the Forbes Global 2000. Its MoMo platform regularly receives industry recognition for mobile money innovation, and the group is a fixture in JSE ESG index selections.

The defining controversy was Nigeria's 2015 fine of $5.2 billion for failing to disconnect unregistered SIM cards, settled in 2016 for approximately $1.7 billion plus a commitment to list MTN Nigeria locally. The episode reshaped how the group manages regulatory relationships.

Ongoing scrutiny areas include its 49 percent stake in Irancell given sanctions sensitivities, periodic tax and license disputes in African markets, and allegations tested in US courts related to operations in Afghanistan, which the company exited in 2024. The group reports no material unresolved regulatory actions as of late 2026.