Good day to everybody, and thank you once again for taking the time to dial in to discuss MTN Group's trading update for the period ended September, the 9 months ended September. My name is Thato Motlanthe. I'm head of Investor, Group Investor Relations at MTN, and on the call with me this afternoon, I've got Ralph Mupita, our Group CEO, as well as Tsholo Molefe, who is our Group CFO. Just as a reminder that our trading update was published this morning on the JSE, and it's posted on our website on the Investor Relations Page. I trust you've all had a chance also to look at the Q3 releases from our listed operating companies, and they published in their respective markets as well as had their own investor calls.
So just for today's call, we'll wanna keep it a little bit focused in terms of our overview of the Q3 performance. Just reiterating key highlights, and Ralph will run you through the agenda, and that is before we open up for Q&A. So Ralph, I'll introduce him in a second. We'll kick us off with an overview. Tsholo will come in with a brief financial highlights, and then Ralph will round up with some forward-looking comments and our focus areas. So we are scheduled for about one hour for this call. And on that note, it's my pleasure to hand over to Ralph.
Thank you very much, Thato, and a very good afternoon from me as well. I trust everybody is keeping well. I would like to cover about six areas in our overview commentary before we open up for Q&A, and these areas are as follows: Our sense of overall performance in the period. The second is the momentum that we're seeing in the MTN SA. The third area we'll cover is the impacts on the MTN Nigeria margin and guidance. Fourth area is the momentum we see in the fintech business. Tsholo will round off the last two areas, which are effectively the FX revaluation in Nigeria. She'll cover that as part of her financial overview, and she'll also cover the tender offer for the outstanding 2024 bonds, where we released the respective communication on the Irish Stock Exchange.
So let me pick up on the first item, which is our overall performance highlight. If we look at the performance, the macro remains challenging, with inflation remaining elevated and local currencies under pressure. On inflation, we did see some encouraging signs of easing as inflation started to subside in markets like South Africa, Ghana, and Uganda. In terms of exchange rates, the key impact was the devaluation of the Naira, which closed at around NGN 780 to the $ at the end of September. Although load shedding in South Africa was a lot more severe on a year-on-year basis, we were encouraged by the progress made in MTN South Africa's resilience program. This is tracking slightly ahead of our plan and helped to push availability in the network above the 95% threshold.
We actually closed September 2023 at 96.2 as a national average availability. We have largely completed Johannesburg and Western Cape and very good progress in Pretoria and KZN, and all of those are areas that deliver the largest revenue contribution to South Africa. If I zoom in on our overall performance, we have been focused on execution operationally and strategically. We've sustained our investment in deploying ZAR 26.2 billion of CapEx in the 9 months, excluding leases, and this is reflected in our network NPS scores, where we hold the number one position in 11 of our markets as of the end of September. This includes some of our larger markets like Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda. South Africa remains number two, but significantly, you know, narrowing the gap to number one, given the progress we've made on the network resilience plan.
Overall, our CapEx intensity of 15.9% was within our target range of 15%-18%. On our commercial metrics, very strong. Again, you'll have seen this in our release, but let me call out some of the key areas. Data traffic was up 20.1% year-on-year in the period, and even stronger at 35% when you exclude the joint ventures. Fintech transactions grew by about 34% year-on-year, reflecting the ongoing robust development of our ecosystem. You'd have heard us say in the past that these trends really underscore the structural growth opportunities we see for our business for the medium to longer term.
Overall, this helped us to deliver solid top-line growth of 14.2%, in constant currency terms, which is within our medium-term target of mid-teens digit growth. If you exclude Sudan, the growth was even much stronger. EBITDA was up 11.2%, with the underlying margin down 1% to 43.2% on a constant currency basis. I will leave it to Tsholo to provide some color on this, but a really resilient performance in difficult conditions with solid top-line growth as well as EBITDA. My second topic is momentum in South Africa.
Looking at the two largest OpCos, and starting with South Africa, one of the key highlights of our results was the pleasing momentum that we saw in the business, particularly relative to what we had previously communicated. Over and above the progress on the network, the first thing to note is the year-on-year service revenue progression over the three quarters to September. Q3, in particular, had service revenue growth of 4.1%, compared to 1.3% in Q1 when we started the year, and 2.5% in Q2. The second call-out is the margin of 37.1%. Again, we highlighted the gradual improvement from the first two quarters when EBITDA margin was in the order of 36%. So we are very encouraged by this progress.
We believe that the business is well-positioned to continue this trajectory of steady improvement in service revenue growth and EBITDA margin expansion. We continue to anticipate that the Network Resilience Program will be substantially complete by end of Q1 next year. Might slip a little bit into Q2. That will complete this with an overall envelope of ZAR 4 billion-ZAR 5 billion having been made, having been invested for our close to 13,000 sites that we have across the country. Let me move on to talk about Nigeria and cover the issues around the MTN Nigeria margin and guidance. Karl and team covered the results last week, but I will spend a bit of time to just frame the EBITDA margin development there. MTN Nigeria covered this, but let me provide some further detail here.
The first point is that you'll have seen in the Q3 margin came down to 47.8 percentage points in constant currency terms. This compares to 53% in H1, which meant that the year-to-date average came to 51.7. Now, this trajectory is in line with what we had guided with our H1 results, in that you would have margin compressions in the next few quarters due to FX and other effects. We also explained that Q4 would likely see the full impacts given the spread of tower leases, some of which pass through the FX effects based on the quarter end rate, while others take the average of the preceding quarters. As I said, this means that the full effects of the Naira devaluation will come through in Q4.
In terms of the guidance provided with the MTN Nigeria results, that the full year margin would be somewhere between 47% and 49%. This was designed to provide the market with a tighter steer as to what was the likely margin outcome for the full year 2023. We have flagged, probably since last year, that there are factors that push our near-term margin in Nigeria to fall below 53%-55% corridor that we target over the medium term. As I read the market reaction to the Nigeria results and commentary, there has been a little bit of confusion about the implied Q4 margin. Let me unpack some of the key dynamics at play, and these points will be covered more fully by Karl and Modupe at the Capital Markets Day in Abuja next Wednesday.
There are probably three key points to call out over and above the normal inflation, as well as factors like network rollout effects and the acceleration of normal PSP. The first is the FX impact, which we have discussed in the past, and the sensitivities there, I think, should be relatively well understood. We have indicated that broadly, a 10% movement in the Naira versus the U.S. resulted in an impact of 1.3 percentage points on EBITDA margins on an annualized basis. Then we have the VAT on leases, which is the second effect I'd like to raise. This was introduced at the beginning of September and has a negative impact on EBITDA margin of about 1 percentage point, also on an annualized basis.
The third important factor baked into the FY 2023 Nigeria margin guidance is that a provision is expected to be raised in relation to the first VAT assessment, while the matter is under appeal. This we've done, to be prudent, and there has been news of this in the past couple of weeks. The provision amounts to an annualized EBITDA margin impact of about approximately 1.3 percentage points, and of course, this will all be provisioned in Q4 2023. Some of you would probably need to reflect as you're looking at the Q4 margin, that this, you know, would be seen as something that it is once off and exceptional.
But it is in that 47%-49% guidance, has been some provision, you know, to that annualized amount of about 1.3 percentage points. Over and above what I've outlined, there are a couple of factors in forming this, which include initiatives being implemented by MTN Nigeria. These are both in top-line initiatives and expense efficiencies, which we believe can mitigate the pressures we're seeing with the Naira devaluation, as well as the inflationary trajectory. The coming months will provide us with an opportunity to assess the traction in these in order to provide the market with an updated view on our guidance outlook for MTN Nigeria. But the MTN Nigeria team will talk to all of this at the CMD next week.
But from these effects, you can appreciate that the VAT assessment provision is a once off that has a material impact on the EBITDA margin forecast for this year. As I said, we are optimistic about our chances of success at the appeal. The other topic I wanted to cover was the FinTech momentum. We're very encouraged by the accelerating profile of our FinTech business. I have highlighted the 34% increase in transaction volumes. Our transaction value was up 57% in constant currency terms. This was supported by good progress in our other ecosystem KPIs, like our agent and merchant footprints, which were all up 11% and 79% respectively in the period.
We've seen very good growth, underlying, in Q3, as we move from Q2, and I think we've been really encouraged by the growth of advanced services. Advanced services have grown 61.8% in the period. We're seeing good growth in payments and in BankTech, and with still solid growth that we see in basic services. You know, we continue to be excited by the acceleration that we're seeing, and we continue to, in our discussions with Mastercard towards concluding the minority investment in Group Fintech . This has taken a little bit longer than we anticipated, and we'll be able to update the market, you know, once the processes have all been concluded. Let me pause here and hand over to Tsholo, and I'll come back with some concluding remarks. Tsholo, over to you.
Thank you, Ralph, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Ralph has covered some of the headline performance metrics with a solid top-line performance in a very challenging macro. Our service revenue growth of 14.2% in constant currency shows resilient performance and EBITDA growth of 11.2%. I just want to highlight some of the salient underlying features of our financial performance. The first highlight is our expense efficiency program, where we realized about ZAR 1.5 billion in savings in the period, which underpinned our strong performance. This achieves the target we set for ourselves for the full year, as we have indicated previously, that we target a further ZAR 7 billion-ZAR 8 billion from 2024 onwards.
So we've been able to achieve ZAR 1.5 billion in the first 9 months relating to the target that we set ourselves for the full year of ZAR 1.5 billion. The second point to make is on our balance sheet, where we reported a consolidated group net debt to EBITDA of 0.5x. This was relatively steady on our last report and remains very comfortably within our covenant limits of 2.5x. Our Holdco leverage was also flat at around 1.5x, really underpinned by the upstreaming that we saw in the third quarter of this year.
We upstreamed about ZAR 3.8 billion in the third quarter, bringing the total upstreaming for the year to date to ZAR 8 billion. A short while ago, just before this call, we are also announced that our treasury team has kicked off the process to early settle our 2024, bonds and, dollar-denominated Eurobonds. We've issued an invitation to eligible note holders, of the $750 million, dollar notes, of which, $450 million remains outstanding, to tender their notes for repurchase by MTN. You will recall that we did a $300 million dollar early settlement of these notes, sometime, last year.
We are very pleased to get the ball rolling on this, as we have discussed with the market previously, as this aligns to our priority to improve the currency mix of our Holdco debt. My final point before handing over back to Ralph, is on the FX provision that was announced last week with MTN Nigeria's results. We outlined in this, our group announcement as well, in the same announcement we issued as well. As a recap of what you saw in our announcement, MTN Nigeria utilizes trade lines to fund the establishment of confirmed irrevocable letters of credit for its largely US dollar-denominated network CapEx investment that sustains our revenue growth. The business then holds Naira-denominated cash cover with banks to support these facilities, essentially a cash collateral.
The significant depreciation of the Naira against the US dollar following the liberalization in June 2023, therefore gave rise to unrealized forex losses relating to these trade obligations. There was therefore, an incorrect application of how this should be treated in our interims of this year, where all the MTN Nigeria trade lines were remeasured after offsetting the Naira-denominated cash collateral. I think we did highlight the impact expected on H1 2023, of between ZAR 0.64-ZAR 0.65 per share on our metrics, and this will be made formally when we report on our interim results of 2024 next year. To remind investors, this is just a once-off adjustment relating to an unrealized effect that is non-cash in nature. So on that note, I'd like to then hand over to Ralph.
Thanks very much.
Thanks so much, Tsholo, and, as you mentioned, we're pretty pleased with the progress we've made now on the, on the deleveraging. It's our second in our capital allocation priorities. We've said that we want to extinguish, you know, reduce maturity, the dollar exposure of the local balance sheets to, to dollar debt. So, I'm very pleased that we're launching that tender offer. You can send any and all offer, that you will see all the details on the Irish Stock Exchange, and hopefully we'll be able to close that out, in the next couple of weeks. So just on an outlook basis, maybe a couple of key messages. I think firstly, the operating environment, we think it will still remain, you know, quite challenging.
We have a business that has got robust and scale to be able to navigate, you know, through some of those challenges. South Africa, again, pleased with the Network Resilience Program, and slightly ahead of our own plans and making very good progress as we, you know, kind of work through region by region. The big regions have substantially been completed. And the resilience is really showing off in the network availability in the regions. Quite a bit of work still to do in the northern region and in the Eastern Cape, but, you know, that's all work that we've pushed to close out in Q1, slightly early Q2 next year. So the big thing to watch out is network.
And as we look at, even some of the progress we've seen in the October numbers, again, we're seeing that performance from South Africa, you know, coming through. So that's the one area that I would focus on the outlook, is the network availability. Nigeria, we focused a lot today in covering, the margin set of issues and how to think about what is once-off within that margin guidance. As I said, I think for those who are doing modeling and looking through to next year, you know, you've got to take out, on an annualized basis, that 1.3 percentage points, which basically refers to the conservative provisioning against the tax matter, which we're appealing.
I do think it's also important to note that whilst we have been waiting for the tariff increase, and we remain highly engaged with the authorities, we have launched actually a, you know, several data bundle plans in Nigeria in more recent weeks that should really help us improve the yield. And so, you know, we'll, we'll continue with that optimization work and the new plans, as well as to seek the tariff increase with the authorities. So that work continues. And as I mentioned twice in my remarks, we have a capital markets day next Tuesday and Wednesday in Nigeria, and I think the team will give you a lot more color around the progress we're making there, as well as MoMo PSB.
If I look at the financial resilience points that we put in our outlook, we're pleased with having made progress with our expense efficiency target for this year. We are, you know, well arranged to pursue the next ZAR 7 billion-ZAR 8 billion. That's over the next three years. You know, these targets have been built up, kind of bottom-up, across the markets as well as head office. So we should be able to show you some meaningful progress over and above the ZAR 1.5 billion that has been achieved, you know, already by the end of Q2/3. We'll continue to seek out these efficiencies.
And then on the deleveraging, as I said, you know, we're, we're looking to close out on the 2024s, and, once that's done, you know, we'll set our sights on 2026, in the sometime in the course of next, next year, and, into 2025. And then on strategic priorities, what's our focus? You know, complete, the Afghanistan exit. We'll continue to work on the small weaker markets, you know, to simplify the portfolio and the work that we're doing with Mastercard, all wanting all of this to, be largely done in the course of this year. On the small weaker markets, that will probably take us a little bit into next year.
You know, these things do take time, but we remain committed to, you know, keeping the portfolio a bit simpler than it has been and, you know, committing all our efforts, human and capital, towards that. The final point really is around the medium-term guidance. Two points to reiterate. The CapEx guidance remains unchanged from last time, so this should keep us in the range 15-18. You know, the board continues to anticipate a full year dividend of a minimum of ZAR 3.30 for full year 2023, paid in April 2024. So with those outlook remarks, Tsholo, maybe we can, you know, switch over to the lines and take some questions.
Thanks, Ralph. Thanks, Tsholo. I'll maybe ask the question in banks of two or three.
Okay.
But maybe before we do that, there's just a question on trade, just to be absolutely clear, in terms of the Nigeria margin discussion. So is the 47%-49% margin guidance for Nigeria inclusive of all the three points mentioned?
Yeah, it's inclusive of all the three points mentioned. I mean, the big delta is that the provision that we've taken. As I said, we're still, you know, you know, confident of our appeal position, that would be included, and that's in the 47-49, takes into account all of those items.
Actually, maybe just moving on to a couple of other questions then. Can you please give us a breakdown of upstreaming, and where that came from? Number one. And then number two, which is in relation to SA for you, Ralph, good progress on network resilience in SA. Do you have a target of what % you're looking for, and how much more you want to spend on it? Just some clarification points there. Tsholo, you're the first question.
Yeah. So I mean, as I indicated, we've been able to upstream ZAR 3.8 billion in the quarter, about ZAR 1 billion, just over ZAR 1 billion from South Africa, Uganda, also just over ZAR 0.5 billion, Rwanda, Ghana. Ghana, as you know, that, obviously we wait for the Central Bank to help us with the conversion to dollar. So it is sitting in our Cedi bank account, so we've been able to upstream there as well, just under ZAR 1 billion. Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin. So quite pleasing to see all the markets coming to the party, as well as Benin as well. Yeah.
Yeah. On this, you know, this year, we'll spend probably ZAR 10 billion of CapEx in South Africa, as per our guidance. Two and a half of that will go to the resilience initiatives that we've had. We've always communicated that we spend, you know, 4-5. So in the early, for Q1 next year, a little bit into Q2, so anticipate another 1.5-2.5 to get us to what we would say, you know, we build resilience, you know, at that stage, 5-6 level too. I mean, we target ultimately, the network of this quality. We want to be able to get, you know, 99.7%. I mean, anything above 97 starts looking respectable.
You know, to get to the number one NPS, I think, will have to be above 99. And that's obviously, you know, assuming that we don't have load shedding substantially above, you know, level six for a prolonged period of time. But very good performance from Charles and the team in the network rollout and resilience.
Thank you both. There are a couple of questions just around IHS. Maybe let's attend to those. And the first part of the question is, with the move of sites, from IHS to ATC in Nigeria, how do you think about the risks related to that transition? And then second one, are you able to give a progress report on the IHS governance matter, and what MTN has decided to, to do to move forward on the matter?
Yeah, let me start with the governance matter. Look, the governance matter is still a work in progress. We've had numerous engagements now with the IHS, you know, management, management to the board. We've also spoken directly to the largest shareholders in IHS, probably the top, you know, the top 6, 7 shareholders, you know, who probably will, you know, hold pretty much, you know, north of 80% of IHS stock. In relationship to our own governance matter, our understanding is Wendel have done similar on their own governance matter. Yeah, on the 2,500 sites that you know, we've signed with ATC now to transfer from the first of January 2025.
You know, a key consideration was the operational risk of not being able to move all our equipment off the sites, you know, to an appropriate ATC site. We've applied our minds, you know, obviously very clearly onto this. You know, which sites do they have proximity, and therefore, we know which ones, you know, just move, you know, across the way, so to speak. And where are there some new site builds? And where there's new site builds, what risks do we take, and is there some sort, you know, of guarantee that ATC would provide us? So we thought about all of that, and, you know, we've had to think about the MTN Nigeria team have had to think about everything in the round.
You know, what kind of lease rates do we want? Nigeria wants a lease agreements that's space and power and a technology-based pricing. So that has, you know, it has a meaningful NPV, you know, over a 10-year period. And so, so we've thought about all of those, including this operational risk. And the team on the ground, Rufai and Karl, you know, feel pretty strong that these are risks that can manage, can also manage it with the radio planning, et cetera. So, we've thought about, the team have thought about the operational risks, and they're manageable.
Thanks, Ralph. So maybe just a couple of questions around voice in South Africa. There's a question that says: It looks like it remained under pressure despite the scaling of XtraTime and improved resilience. Is there a more permanent shift in behavior? And then another question for Solo: Can you provide a rough guide on how the ZAR 1.5 billion expense efficiencies were split across the OpCos?
Yeah, if I start on voice in South Africa, I mean, a big drag of growth in South Africa has been, you know, prepaid voice. And I think, you know, in many platforms we've spoken about, you know, the holy grail for us on prepaid voice is to get it to high negative single digit. Just knowing how mature South Africa is, you know, a victory on prepaid voice, you know, would be a growth that's more like anywhere between -7 and -9. So as you can see in quarter one of this year, voice was more like -16, so that was really, you know, a big challenge. Now come down to just over 10%. So, I mean, on a trajectory basis, I think we are moving the right direction. On XtraTime, we've changed providers.
That's made a big difference since June. Since June, we're seeing XtraTime, you know, increase as part of the recharge. We're not at the levels of, of Vodafone. I think they're in the very high thirties and not in the forties, if our intelligence is correct. I mean, so we're still in the mid-twenties. There's obviously an optimal level of which you want XtraTime as a percentage of recharge, but I think we're still under indexed. And so the scope...
and as I said, as we look at the progress we've made, just, and a month doesn't make a season, but when we look at the October numbers, we're encouraged that, you know, the trend on voice, you know, should be getting us in Q4, you know, towards what we've always looked for, which is high negative single digits. So that's, you know, -7 to -9, is where you would see it. So trajectory-wise, and, you know, this XtraTime provider, I think with them, we should be able to get there. If not in this quarter, certainly in Q1 next year.
... Yeah, I mean, on the expense efficiency, about, I think about just over 50% came from our two large markets, Nigeria and South Africa, with, probably, mostly from, South Africa as well. I mean, across the board, we have been very, you know, deliberate in terms of making sure that, you know, we cut down on expenses that can be deferred, delayed, including, you know, non-critical, vacancies that we can shift, so across, you know, all the markets. And, we also saw that that came through as well. So I think suffice to say that, but the largest savings also came from, network. About a third of, the expense efficiencies came from network. About another, you know, just over, probably 15% from sales and distribution. Yeah.
Thanks, Zola. A couple of people asking: Can you please elaborate on the developments at Mastercard and where we are in the process?
Yeah, the developments are, as we said the last time in August, that we were going to go through kind of a DD process, so that's where we still are. So it's not completed. These things can take, you know, longer. So that's where we are. I mean, on the commercial side, I think we are ready. We've done quite a lot of work around the proposition. I think we were, you know, probably a few weeks out towards launching in Rwanda, you know, to initiate the commercial relationship. So, it's taken us a little bit longer, but we're still in train.
I guess when we have completed that process, we'll come back to investors on where we've concluded and all the usual detail that investors want to understand, you know, what's the investment amount, et cetera.
Just a question on CapEx. Year to date, the delta of ZAR 20 billion in CapEx guidance on IFRS versus IAS is much higher than in past years. Can you share any thoughts on why this is?
Yeah, I mean, we obviously have indicated our lease have gone up, and part of the reason is that we have seen, as we indicated previously, we did do a renewal of the tower contracts in Côte d'Ivoire as well as Cameroon. There obviously has been an increase in volumes in Nigeria, so that would have taken our leases up, and as a result, increasing the IFRS 16 capital expenditure.
So there's another question on SA. Can you comment on how much the residential business contributed to postpaid growth? And in the wholesale business, the entire Telkom traffic in KZN now runs on your network, what other regions are you likely to onboard over the next 12 months?
Yeah.
We don't disclose the contribution.
Yeah, I was about to say-
Residential.
We don't disclose that.
Yeah.
Okay. So you answered the question.
Yeah. On, on the Telkom traffic, just, how are you thinking about the arrangements in terms of wholesale then?
Yeah, look, we continue to engage Telkom as we do with Cell C to, you know... You know, network as a service is part of our strategy, and, in South Africa, that's where we started it. So yeah, we've seen good progress. Look, we'll take, you know, incremental growth as and when it comes. You know, they are looking to, you know, to renew their contract, their wholesale contract. I think it's coming up in, Q1, end of Q1, early Q2, next year, next year. So, I mean, we'll sharpen our pencils and see if we can, you know, have more than just, you know, the, the KZN problem.
So yeah, we've been pleased with the growth there, but we'll continue to try and get more parts of the growth 'cause we, you know, we have the ability to carry, you know, that level of traffic, you know, Cell C on the postpaid... sorry, the prepaid side, and then also Telkom. But that's obviously. These are competitive dynamics that will be in play.
A question on Nigeria. Given the rate of growth in traffic versus revenue, can you comment on the trend in implied effective tariffs? How does this reconcile to the objective of increasing prices?
Yeah, look, I mean, obviously, you know, we've been at work across all our markets in Nigeria included, in optimizing pricing. So optimizing pricing is a loaded term for many things, I mean, but one of them is to look commercially at promotional traffic that doesn't generate revenue. So we've been working on that actually for a couple of quarters now, and reducing the kind of free traffic to increase the effective rate, effective rate per gig. As I mentioned, you know, in Nigeria, in recent weeks, we've actually launched a whole new portfolio of plans, data plans, you know, which should support yields in terms of data. So we should...
That should help, you know, improve, so we had the first full month of it in actually in October, so we'll see it in Q4. So these things are all helpful, reduction of some of the promotional activity, as well as new plans. I mean, fundamentally, you know, you know, given where we see, inflation impacts, exchange rate impacts, particularly on network costs, it is much needed to have at an industry level, you know, tariff adjustments for both voice and data. And that doesn't change. And I know Karl and team continue to engage the NCC on that, because it's really an issue about industry sustainability.
For sure, it's important for us as MTN, but you have a four-player market in Nigeria, and, if number three and number four in particular cannot generate sufficient cash flow to fund next year's CapEx, you know, that market can quickly move from four, to three—sorry, from four to two, and, and even, to one. That's the message that we are having with the authorities. So look, I mean, I still... we haven't quite got that tariff increase yet. We've been able to launch, you know, these new plans, with the approval of the NCC. And so let's see where those conversations go. We still feel highly convicted that, you know, ultimately those tariff increases will come through.
So and then some questions on MoMo PSB in Nigeria. What do you expect from fintech growth in Nigeria, and why are the cash shortages still being cited as an issue given that they appear to have abated in Q2? And then the second one is answered already.
Yeah, look, on MoMo PSB, I mean, we're not happy with where we are. You know, some are external factors and some are own internal factors. So the external factors, I don't think the cash shortage of H1 should be... sorry, of Q1, in particular, a little bit into Q2, but certainly not a Q3 factor. You know, has been, you know, has impacted the way that we thought we would see the wallet development, you know, for the full year 2023. So but that's kind of out the way. What we've been focusing now on is really do quite a lot of investment towards, you know, educating the customers, building the merchant ecosystem, et cetera. And that normally takes time, and we've seen that in other markets. It's not a straight line development.
You've got to, you know, create a minimum kind of scale effects for it just to push through. I mean, we still, we still remain convicted that three years out, we should be able to get 30 million wallets. That has not, you know, we haven't lost that conviction, but it has been a difficult start in a challenging macro. But the team will cover that next week in terms of how we remain super excited about the opportunity, but we're slightly probably behind, you know, on the rollout and our own expectation of wallets by the year-end. So how do we still believe it will develop? I mean, three years out, I mean, we think we would have done a decent job at 30 million.
We've had a growth now, 3.6 million wallets, so it's a bit of an improvement since H1, 0.5 million additional. We've provided additional investment in this quarter, quarter four. And that's kind of all in the EBITDA margin that we spoke about, but we didn't want to highlight it of itself. But it's not an immaterial amount that we put into, you know, really accelerate the ecosystem so that we can start seeing the growth of this, you know, particularly Q1, Q2, next year. I think if I annualize it and the EBITDA margin impact of what we call the booster plan, that's, you know, just slightly over, you know, 0.5% of EBITDA margin, you know, for the full year.
Thanks, Ralph. Then just a question on strategic progress. Can you just recap the rationale on the planned exits from the three smaller, weaker markets?
Yeah, I mean, the rationale that we took is... I mean, the portfolios, you know, we periodically review the portfolio to say, you know, what fits into the portfolio, strategically, you know, where can we add value as a group? And, you know, how does it align with our capital allocation priorities, as well as the ability for these businesses to be self-standing and so forth. So, and there's a whole host of criteria we look at. And, you know, sometime back last year, we came to a conclusion that, you know, strategically, we weren't the best owners of these markets in the long term. We weren't able, you know, given just our risk framework and risk appetite, we were not probably the best owners of these assets.
And hence, you know, we took a decision, you know, on a, you know, following some outbound interest that we would explore the exit. I think over and beyond the point of, you know, those three specific markets, it's important, you know, to reiterate to shareholders that, you know, if we need, as a group, to be able to add value to the markets, and the markets need to be able, you know, to contribute, you know, to the group in its totality. And so we do want markets that can fund their own operations, upstream management fees, upstream dividends. You heard Tsholo talk about the Benins, the Cameroons.
I know there's a lot of focus on South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana, but you know, what we've seen in this period is that the heavy lifting from the other markets, Uganda, Benin, Cameroon, and so forth. So, you know, portfolio optimization is something that's always ongoing. We've already started, and we start prior to these three markets. We did communicate exiting the consolidated Middle East markets. Afghanistan is remaining on the consolidated. Gonna try and make progress on those three weaker markets and kind of prune the portfolio a bit.
Thank you, Ralph. Just a couple of questions, I guess, cross, cross financial and strategic. One that says, you know, would it make sense for MTN to diversify away from EM currencies? Is this something that you'd consider? And then, you're running a strong, a strong balance sheet. Has your net debt EBITDA bottomed at this level, and where do you see this going in the next three years?
Yeah. So maybe I'll start, and then Tsholo , we'll finish off where I've forgotten. Look, I mean, what we've said on to be on strategy is that, you know, we want to focus our resources on a Pan-African strategy. So we really believe we can be distinctive on the African continent. You know, ex-Africa, you know, to be frank with you, you know, as myself and the board have not applied our minds. Actually, we are focused on kind of shrinking the portfolio and allocating capital judiciously to the markets where we think we can make a difference.
I mean, this part of the portfolio that has much more a euro mix, so you see that in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, those markets, they exhibit inflation impacts that look more like Europe, where the currency is, you know, pretty stable there. I mean, Uganda, if you look at the performance in Uganda, where inflation has been coming down, I think it's been, you know, really robust performance. Sylvia and team, very well done there. And then obviously, we have South Africa and Nigeria being the two that drive. But I think specific to your question, you know, it's not a strategic thought for us to expand beyond, you know, our markets. And that's part of, you know, leading into the next question.
That's part of the strategy that we've taken, which is that we do want to reduce the exposure of the holdco leverage, you know, to dollar currency mismatch. I mean, this whole tender offer is looking to optimize the company's debt maturity profile and currency mix. So that's where we are. Once we've concluded the 2026 bonds, I don't think we'll be talking about the holdco leverage anymore. We'll just talk about group leverage, 'cause everything is pretty much in ZAR or in Naira at a group consolidated level. So I don't know if you have anything to add.
Yeah. No, I mean, I think you've covered it. I think the focus in line with our capital allocation framework has always been to reduce the exposure to the non-rand debt, which is essentially what, what we are doing. So hopefully, you know, we're able to settle the remaining balance of the 2024 bonds, and then we'll focus on 2026 next year. And then, I'm sure that framing of the capital allocation framework, as capital allocation, will probably be a different priority order in future.
Both, and this is actually another question which is almost the opposite of that one. Does MTN Group have any plans to obtain new operating licenses in new markets? We have not seen any interest since the last interest in the Ethiopian market.
Yeah, I mean, we're always looking, we have an M&A team led by Kholekile . So, I mean, these guys are frantically looking at sort of the globe for opportunities, you know, in-market consolidation opportunities, where do they exist? And where we're number one, we can't take advantage of those. Yeah, and we look at the markets. I mean, right now, we're very focused on allocating capital to our organic footprint that we have today, and, you know, dealing with the deleveraging, ensuring that we have headroom for the cash dividend for shareholders. But we do look, and... but we're gonna be very disciplined on, you know, capital allocation to markets, as and when they come.
And if something does come up, you know, we will talk to shareholders, but it doesn't mean that we're not looking. We are always constantly looking, but we've got such strict financial criteria that very few ideas have fallen through the sieve. The Ethiopia one, I think, is the one everybody will remember, and I think we did look at in-market consolidation in South Africa. So, I mean, the team is busy, but the financial criteria creates a very tough hurdle for ideas to pass through that we'll ultimately bring to the purview of investors.
Another question on SA, and what was the impact on SA margins, and how do you see this unfolding going forward?
Yeah.
Of load shedding on the SA margin.
Yeah, I mean, I think as we've previously communicated, I mean, it's close to about one percentage point. And I think as we obviously improve, you know, the network resilience, and we've seen the, you know, improvement in Q3, we should be able to, you know, meet our guidance that we've given to the market. So over time, we should be able to improve that, going forward.
A couple more questions on Nigeria. First one, are you seeing in terms of the pricing optimization that you're seeing in the new plans, are you seeing similar level of activity from your competitors in Nigeria? First question. The second one, is there anything changing in terms of U.S. dollar availability in Nigeria, and when do you expect this improvement?
Is that a question for me or Tsholo ?
Uh-
So first one, probably for you.
Okay.
Second one, probably for Tsholo .
Okay.
I think it's me.
Why don't we start with Tsholo ?
US dollar availability in Nigeria.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, I think from what we understand, there has been some a bit of movement, particularly to the relationship banks, so we're starting to see some movement there. I think with regards to the local banks, I don't think they have seen any specific allocation from the CBN yet. But obviously, we will see how that pans out, you know, over the next few quarters. From our perspective, we have not seen any allocation to MTN Nigeria specifically, but we're starting to see some movement to specific, you know, international banks, to my knowledge, but very minimal at this point.
... Yeah, look, I mean, you know, we are, we're all up in Abuja next week for the Capital Markets Day. But the news flow coming out in the last couple of days has been that, you know, Central Bank operations and allocating, you know, have started, so that's positive. And to this point, I mean, we haven't seen it, this is all a week old, but you can well imagine that we will be in the queue of foreigners, you know, with demands for forex, the so-called $7 billion backlog. I mean, our numbers would probably be there. So we'll stand behind the queue there. So that's a positive development, if this can be sustained.
On the new plans, yeah, as I mentioned, the last couple of weeks, we've launched new data plans in Nigeria. These have, you know, they should improve the yields as we get into Q4, come out of Q1. We've launched about different plans there. Yeah, so the next couple of months should show, you know, whether these are improving the effective rate per gigabyte. So that's this should all be positive. But we're still, you know, pushing for that kind of base tariffing. So this has only been on data, no new plans on voice. As many of you would know, voice... data just exceeded voice in total, volume of revenue in Nigeria in August.
So this is a material development, but it's too early to call out fully what the yield will get out of that. But these plans are being sold, have been sold for the last four weeks in Nigeria.
Thanks, Ralph. I think we've the last 2 or 3 questions. First one is, I think it's a clarity point. At what stage might you provide in full for the potential Nigerian VAT amount? What should we be looking out for? That's question number 1. Question number 2 on SA: With the sunsetting of 2G and 3G set to happen over the next few years, what progress has MTN made in shutting down these technologies? And then question number 3: Any plans to relook at Telkom?
Oh, so many questions. Where do you start?
So in terms of the provision for the
Yes.
For the VAT, we will be providing in Q4, because obviously we have received a judgment. So, you know, it is a prudent thing to do that. We are expected to obviously, you know, do a provision, but as we indicated, we are lodging an appeal in this regard.
Yeah. Thanks, thanks Tsholo . Just on SA, look, we've—I mean, there's a, there's a structural trend across the world to move, you know, to more, you know, 4G, 5G upwards. I think in Africa, we'll have to have 2G, 4G plus. So 2G will need to be... So we'll be able to refarm the current frequencies we have on 3G, you know, over time and create efficiencies. I mean, the big thing is, I keep saying this to Charles, is that we should stop selling completely 2G handsets. I mean, if, you know, we should really have the government, you know, clamp down on 2G handsets, so that, you know, for now, there should really be incentives to drive adoption in using 4G plus.
So, I mean, we've done a lot of preparatory work with the timelines that the government has indicated around the shutdown. And, you know, to the point, I mean, medium term, this should have quite a lot of efficiency for the networks. 3G is a very inefficient technology, particularly from a power point of view. So, anything that takes us away from there, you know, obviously, you know, creates a bunch of efficiencies. 2G, 4G, 5G plus, I think, is the configuration that we see on networks five years out. Yeah, on Telkom, there are no, you know, there's nothing to report, you know, on what we previously spoke about in terms of our engagements with Telkom.
Nothing at this stage.
Thank you very much. I think that wraps up the call. I don't know if you've got any final remarks, Ralph, before we end the call.
Yeah. Thanks so much for joining Tsholo and I on the call today, and I know it takes probably a day or so to read through our results and, you know, get a bit of a picture of what's happening and what the outlook looks like. Any further questions you have, please pass them on to Thato. For the investors who have plans to go to Abuja, we look forward to seeing you from Tuesday onwards next week. Karl and the team will put on their best foot forward. I think they'll basically cover, you know, the investment case, why we still believe the investment case is strong, you know, given the nascent demand for both data and fintech services. They'll cover that.
I think they will cover in more detail, you know, this margin outlook for the year, which then helps you frame what you should anticipate as the margin development in a much more on a 2024 viewpoint. As we said, we would come back with full year results of Nigeria next year. So anticipate that to happen in January, end of January, where we give the guidance. I think what's important in the guidance is, given where inflation is today, and where exchange rates are, you know, we have a view that the market, over the medium term, should generate service revenue above inflation. So I think, you know, as we said, we would look to update the market on both service revenue and EBITDA margin outlook over the medium term.
So the team will give you enough to start thinking through that, although they'll only reveal that in January. I think another important point, which when we look at the broker notes and commentary, I think it'll be important for the team to talk through, in the way that we adopted IFRS 16, we took a hybrid methodology basis, where some of the effects comes above EBITDA and below EBITDA. So there's been a lot of questions about why is our P&L more sensitive than other P&Ls, and I think Modupe and team will do a good job to explain that to you guys in Abuja next week.
We did do a bit of a teaching when I was Group CFO many moons ago, but I think it would be good to just dust that up a little bit, particularly around how one looks at that. So much is happening below EBITDA, but I think one has to look at EBITDA and PAT at the same time to just understand, you know, the economics of the business. But all that and more next week in Abuja. Look forward to seeing many of you, if not physically, dialing into the call. Thanks so much.
Thank you. That ends the call.