Good morning, everybody, and welcome to day two of our Capital Markets Day. My name is Thato Motlanthe. I'm the head of Investor Relations at MTN Group. I just want to take a couple of minutes to outline a couple of things this morning. Those of you who joined us yesterday, welcome back, and at the dinner, I trust it was informative. I mean, really just some context as to how we've put together this Capital Markets Day. You'll have seen we've got a CMD day, and at the risk of sort of rehashing some of the things that all of you are kind of nose deep in on a daily basis, we do have a broad range of stakeholders who might not be familiar with the markets that we're in and the conditions that we're facing.
I think second to that, a lot of the conversations that we've had as we've traipsed around, engaging with some of you guys. It has been a macro story before we could get into the company. We thought, you know, instead of being pretending to be economists and quoting financial journals, let's bring the guys in who are on the ground, give you a little bit of color. We hope that was useful. You would have seen that as much as we're facing challenges, there's a lot of opportunity in the market, and that's really how we position as MTN. I think the second thing is that you might not have seen the microsite that we've set up. It has a lot of useful information.
We've got the list of presenters, we've got the detailed agenda, we've now uploaded the presentations that you'll see this morning. I do flag the Podcast tab, for no other reason than there is a lot of useful information about some of the other businesses and functions that are driving Ambition 2025. I think the second thing is that we do have a good story to tell, I wouldn't dare steal Ralph and Tsholo's thunder by unpacking that, but we do have a good story to tell. You would have seen some of our, in some of our posters, that our theme for the CMD is Realizing Ambition 2025: Progress. Let me get this right. Progress, Prospects, and Priorities. I think it really captures what we're trying to get to you today.
I hope that as we go through the presentations, it will come through quite clearly. The third thing, and quite importantly, is just really thank all of the MTNers and groups and teams that have helped us put this together. From the event, the content that I've just talked about, the presentations that you'll see, I think it has been a massive collaborative effort. We've worked, you know, it's been a massive effort under a lot of pressure, very short time frames, and we're happy to present it to you today. Those are really the three points that I wanted to get across. I saw a more dynamic MC will carry us through the day. With that, thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming.
It is the first big in-person, or hybrid in-person event that we're doing, and we thank you very much for coming in. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Thato. Thank you very much for that, indeed, welcome everybody for the part two or day two of our Capital Markets Day. Special welcome to everybody that's here in person at the MTN Innovation Centre, a warm welcome to everybody that's joining us online. As you all know, we are broadcasting online via our webcast platform. That will allow everybody that's joining us virtually to also be able to participate through the Q&A that we'll be having throughout the day. On this specific day, being day two, we're gonna spend the day unpacking MTN's Ambition 2025 strategy, as Thato's already said. We're gonna talk about what the business is focused on. We're gonna also focus on the platform businesses, very exciting indeed, that are causing a shift, of course, in MTN's business portfolio. Before we kick off, just some housekeeping rules.
First of all, safety first. There are two emergency exits, one on the top left here, as you're probably likely to have used it, most of you guys, and there's another one down here as well on my right. Please make sure you know which one is closest to you, should there be an emergency. In terms of bathrooms, there are restrooms in both exits as well. If you use the top exit next to the tech bar reception, you'll find the bathrooms, and here on this side, the bathrooms are just next door to the elevators. For the Wi-Fi, there is free Wi-Fi. It is MTN after all, and you can just use the QR code that's gonna be on screen.
There's a couple of posters around the room that also have the QR code, and for those that are gonna be using the username and password, you will see them there as well. You can also do that. For those that are going to be participating on social media, Twitter, or any other platform, you may use the hashtag MTNCMD23. The hashtag is, that's what we'll be using for the day, and if you wanna follow us on Twitter or quote us on Twitter, the Twitter handle is @MTNGroup. Of course, we've made all the provisions in case there is any load shedding throughout the day. The facility here at MTN has uninterrupted power supply, so you should probably not even know if there's load shedding.
If for whatever reason, things don't work out as planned, as life tends to sometimes, I'll make sure that I get on stage and help you deal with that for a few minutes as the lights get back. Right. I also have a disclaimer to share with you. It's a standard disclaimer that is very, very detailed. It would have been communicated to you when you RSVPd, just in terms of the information that is shared. As you know, we are a publicly listed company, and we wanna make sure that you receive all the information, noting the disclaimer that applies to all the MTN speakers and their presentations today.
Yesterday, for those that were here, they would know that, in our tea breaks and our lunches, we had, the little, drum to indicate that you must come back. It did not work, okay. 'Cause most of you were just standing there and dancing to the music. What I'm gonna do today is that if you hear my voice, I ask you to please, make your way back in. That essentially signals that we probably are 60 seconds away from kicking off in the next session. Please, enjoy your lunch, enjoy your tea, but, look out for this coarse voice. When I call you back, please make your way back into the room. If you need any help, indeed, Natasha is our resident model.
Anyone that's dressed like her, with that black and MTN shirt with the wonderful African print, anyone who's wearing that shirt can help you around. You can ask for anything around the building. You get lost, you don't know where the bathrooms are, feel free to ask anybody that you see. We're now gonna get into day two, and up next, we will be hearing from our Group President and CEO, Ralph Mupita. He will be providing an overview of Ambition 2025, the strategy that was of course, introduced back in 2021, with the intent of leading digital solutions for Africa's progress. Along with him will be our Group CFO, Tsholofelo Molefe, who is going to take us through MTN's all-important financial and capital allocation framework, which I'm pretty sure you guys are all interested in.
Also explain how the strong balance sheet that MTN has, will position it to well absorb the shocks that are rising through very tough economic environments in most of the markets. First up, let me hand over to Ralph.
Andile, thanks very much, and very good morning from me. I trust that you all enjoyed day one yesterday, those who joined us physically here at Innovation Center and those virtually. I think those who joined us physically and enjoyed the dinner, you'd well remember some of the key phrases that came out yesterday. I'm remembering the one that says, "It takes one with vested interest to catch another one with vested interest." I think we've got a bit of rivalry here between speedboats and tankers, and I think the speedboat says they'll take out the tanker of Nigeria. I trust that you enjoyed the framework we had yesterday and managed to also engage with our management teams.
We get a lot of feedback from time to time that we want to see more than just Tsholo and Ralph, and I trust that the two days gives you a sense of the depth of the management that we have and the executives who are actually, you know, prosecuting the strategy that we have. Trust that also that the macro backdrop set of issues we well articulated yesterday, and listening to those who would argue, you know, are probably more authoritative than us. Today we will focus a lot more on the strategy itself and how we are, you know, progressing. As Thato has mentioned, the real emphasis for us kind of almost at the half year point of a five-year strategy, is to talk about the progress we've made.
You know, progress is not always linear and smooth, we'll be upfront and honest about the things that we're dealing with and the challenges. That's the part of the progress. Obviously, the priorities. There are some priorities in the near term that we will cover to give you a sense of how we're thinking about navigating the conditions that we have. And also, you know, the prospects that we see, you know, over the medium to longer term. We'll cover all of that. Just coming through, you know, you guys are very familiar with the framing of MTN and all our, you know, our numbers and datas and data.
As Thato's mentioned, you know, obviously, we also have investors who are less familiar with the story and trying to get up to speed, but I won't spend too much time on that. When we had our last Capital Markets Day, you know, we had, you know, service revenue for the company of about ZAR 170 billion. We're pretty much at the end of last year, not too far from the ZAR 200 billion, so added close on to ZAR 30 billion of service revenue. We've also added, you know, an additional 20 million active data subscribers. We added 22 million of fintech subscribers. Decent progress against some of the headwinds that we spoke about and the teams will cover.
We've also been able, in that time, to, you know, maintain a, you know, an attractive margin profile for the business. We've also executed on what we said we would do about focusing on a Pan-African strategy. We were 21 markets the last time we spoke. We're down to 19 markets. We're out of Syria, and we're out of Yemen, and obviously, you're aware of our progress of getting out of Afghanistan. It hasn't been super easy, but we've stayed true to the course of what we said we would do, which is, you know, to really focus on the markets that we think we can have impact. I'm also very proud of the fact that as a business, we've maintained, you know, the most valuable brand position, the most admired African brand.
Pretty much last week, we also, you know, were given the shout-out in terms of the work we're doing on Africa, on planet and people. Really, really powerful brand that gives us the ability to deliver in challenging markets and also obviously work with the nation states, and we had a bit of that dialogue yesterday. I mean, I always, you know, like to, you know, talk to investors, particularly investors who are fairly new to the company, about, you know, the portfolio of the business, and we're running the business predominantly on a geographic basis. That's how we have kind of our operating model with South Africa, Nigeria, and markets.
I think to stay at a pretty much a 30,000 foot view, you'll see, the way we try and think about it. South Africa, obviously, you know, more advanced in terms of the technology trends. It's much more stable. It's highly cash generative for us. It enables to upstream to the group. You know, helps us to service, you know, kind of the group interest on the debt, finances the center, and obviously helps, you know, with the dividends. We've said to investors that the current dividend policy actually, is underpinned by SA cash flows. South Africa, you know, has a portfolio role, really, to anchor pretty much the group. Nigeria, as you can see, is where, you know, the kind of earnings growth and momentum is.
The last time we spoke to you at the Capital Markets Day, what you see there in the chart is 46% EBITDA. That was 39%. Notwithstanding the headwinds that Karl and team have faced, we've actually seen the business kind of power through and continue to grow strongly, whether it was SIM registration and the issues that we faced. In markets, when you think about it from a portfolio perspective, actually, that's where the success story of fintech mobile money has been. 75%, actually, of our subscriber base are actually coming from the markets. Obviously, you know, a lot of detail there, and you guys will be familiar with the numbers.
The way we are, you know, managing the business, there have been a few tweaks to how we're managing the business to support the strategy and how we're executing. Four key points I'd raise: firstly, we've put the market structure, where Ebenezer, who will come on stage, will talk about their priorities, to actually look at, in particular, how we share best practice across the regions, but also importantly, the work we're doing to do the structural separation for fintech and fiber. We've got to do this in a way that we don't lose value. I often have a discussion with investors. They say, you know, "Why aren't you moving so much quicker?
You know, why haven't you completely de-merged?" There's a lot of value that is trapped, that I sometimes talk to my teams and say, "It's kind of invisible value," so you've got to do these structural separations of fiber and fintech. Ebenezer's role, and one of his important roles, is to make sure that decoupling is done in a sensible manner so that we preserve the value and end up at the end state that we're looking at. Ebenezer works very closely with Yolanda and Ishmael within that journey, and he's also looking to work through these orderly exits of the Middle East. The exits are simple to execute on a corporate finance basis, but there's a lot of tidying up that Ebenezer and Ishmael still need to do.
The market structure is part of what helps us make sure that we're able to execute our strategy. Internally, we talk a lot about performing and transforming the company at the same time. That requires a very delicate balance, and that's the responsibility that Ebenezer will have. The other change we made is to bring legal and regulatory together under Lele. We saw a lot of efficiencies in bringing the legal and regulatory. Often the regulatory issues have got deep legal issues, and Lele and the team, you know, are giving us a whole bunch of efficiencies running there. We've elevated our strategy and transformation, again, to manage the portfolio of change very carefully and sequentially so that we don't drop anything in between the execution. As I said, this is about perform and transform at the same time.
Chika helps us, you know, to navigate the change programs, you know, looking at, you know, how we sequence, and we are always dynamically looking at, you know, what do we allocate resources to, et cetera. Obviously, we've also brought to the top table, sustainability, and Nompilo and the team, and kudos to her and actually Mazen and Paul for all the stuff that I'll talk a little bit later on sustainability, that we've progressed. That's the team that actually executes, and Tsholo and I have the pleasure to talk about the work that they do.
There's been a logic to the tweaks and the changes that we've made to support the strategy so that nothing falls through the cracks as we look to, you know, do what I said, which is really perform and transform at the same time. Before I get into the strategy, just a little bit of a context, and I won't spend too much time on this. You know, the last two years, you know, there's a whole range of, macro issues we've had to deal with, and not to spend time and, go back to what was covered yesterday. Obviously, a lot of geopolitical and social issues and macro. Some of them will be covered, later, such as, load shedding and SA by Charles. I won't steal his thunder.
What we had to do is navigate quite a lot of complexity on the regulatory front, and we've come through in good shape. On the SIM registrations, you will remember the issues around instant registration, and also in Ghana, we've been communicating how we deal with that, how we focus on the regulatory issues and our disciplines around, you know, risk management. Nigeria and Ghana probably have been the most material, and we've managed to progress through and actually, you know, come out, you know, actually much stronger the other side of, you know, the SIM registration issues that we've had to deal. Spectrum has been a big issue across our markets. South Africa, we've successfully got through. Nigeria, 100 megahertz of 3,500, that's allowing us to push ahead.
Karl is pushing ahead with 5G, and you'll hear from Karl a little bit later. We've had to deal with a whole bunch of tax issues. You know, our approach to tax compliance is really about kind of a zero tolerance to non-compliance issue. I mean, there is no point in denuding nation states that we say we want to partner by being too clever around tax, you know, we've dealt with the issues that come our way, and obviously, we've had to deal with a lot of license renewals away. These challenges, for sure, are in our markets, but we've arranged ourselves to be able to, you know, work through and emerge on the other side, largely in the shape that we've wanted to be.
I'll leave my colleagues to, you know, to talk more in detail. We've developed a framework since last year where we've really stood back and said, you know, as we look at the macro headwinds that are impacting us, how do we navigate this company, you know, through these headwinds and ideally come out the other end stronger? We've developed what we call internally the eight-Point Plan, and today you will hear specifics from each of the executives who will speak, which is basically, how do we think about the commercial agenda? How do we think about supply chain networks and financial resilience? I think the big topic often we hear with the investors is really around the commercial agenda. How is inflation impacting our business, and how are we thinking about pricing?
Not to steal the thunders of those who will present later, CVM, price optimization, is a big topic in our organization, where we drill down to the level of granularity of how we think about above-the-line pricing and below-the-line pricing. The bottom line is, a lot of work is happening around below-the-line pricing. I mean, Jens is here, and the colleagues, and we are working through systematically across the businesses to ensure that we bring back and restore Our financial formula, which, and Tsholo will talk about, which is over time, we want service revenue growing above blended inflation across our markets. Again, we'll talk to that in the context of today. If I jump to network, obviously, the big issues are tower co-contracts. We have ATC, we have IHS.
Across our portfolio, we've been engaging with ATC in Ghana and in Uganda, IHS in many markets, such as Nigeria, here in SA, you know, Cote d'Ivoire, to name a few. We've been going through a process of looking at those contracts, working with the parties. I mean, there's a big component of IHS towers that, the lease ends end of 2024, so we're in that process of reviewing, and we do that, you know, independently. Yes, we're a shareholder in IHS, but when we look at that portfolio for Karl, that comes in 2024, I mean, we exercise the disciplines of saying, you know, Karl and the team will put forward what is the best deal, and obviously, in due course, when we complete that, we'll come and update you where we are.
A lot of work that you have been familiar with around financial resilience. We took the steps, you know, pre the pandemic and into some of the polycrisis issues we faced last year to look at our expense base and benchmark ourselves across all expense categories, and we've used the A.T. Kearney approach, which is really about benchmarking ourselves against a comparable group on a top quartile basis, all the way through, you know, cost of sales and OpEx schedule, so it's a very detailed and granular program. Obviously, you know, Tsholo has been updating how we're progressing. That work continues, and that's helped us actually, in the last year, to get through with a decent, you know, financial profile, EBITDA margins, fairly resilient, and we focused also a lot on the debt.
Our board sometimes say, "You know, Ralph, you and Tsholo talk too much about HoldCo leverage," because when you look at the group leverage, actually, there really isn't an issue. We focused on the Holdco leverage because we think it's important, you know, to deal with the mismatch between the dollar bonds that we have, particularly the 2024 and 2026s, and hence, we've developed a capital allocation framework that is really focused on saying, for now, when we say, you know, we're putting the bulk of our capital in taking advantage of the opportunity, the next investing order is, you know, is the faster deleveraging. You know, once we've, you know, delivered on that, obviously, we have to review and reflect, is the capital allocation framework, you know, still appropriate?
We like to think that that is, you know, ultimately a nice problem to have. We have this program, and you'll hear later from our colleagues around how we're implementing. Won't spend too much time on how we've achieved, not to pat ourselves on the back. It's for you guys to tell us as you buy the shares and so forth. I would like to think that, you know, over the last couple of years, from a progress point of view, we've basically delivered financially, in aggregate, what we said we would do. We built out our networks, we're growing subscribers, picking up market share, and we're seeing the financial profile, you know, improve.
When I joined, I was really worried about our return on equity, and I was saying we're delivering a return on equity that's below the cost of equity, and you could argue, maybe we should have another metric, like ROIC. This is just a measure of, you know, how we've progressed 10 percentage points improvement, and really having a focus on ensuring that, you know, there's enough headroom between the cost of equity and the actual return that we deliver. Again, the message on deleveraging has been one where we've been kind of razor-sharp focused.
As I said, sometimes some of our board members say, "You know, Ralph, you should talk about the group leverage, because actually, you know, you don't really have a gearing problem." You know, let's have that conversation once, you know, we've dealt with the Eurobonds in time. This is just a little bit of a snapshot of what we've done, and for many of you, this is familiar territory. On Ambition 2025, just, you know, data that you guys are very familiar with, we're calling out that the case for digital and financial inclusion across our markets remains strong and compelling. We remain highly convicted of that story.
When you see the level of mobile internet penetration or people who have bank accounts, the cash economies we're still dealing with, you know, there's enormous opportunity, you know, we are arranging ourselves to be able to take advantage of that. That is the underlying thesis of our strategy, as you all know. I mean, this is one of my charts. Thato always says, "Ralph, you know, this chart, I think you overdo it." I said, "Look, I mean, it's a way of thinking about the demand side in our markets." You know, really, the things that are core to our investment case, as we've presented to you, are we going to be able to see data growing strongly?
Are we gonna be able to see fintech growing strongly? Are we gonna be able to monetize that adoption, and the growth, obviously, is an important point? I think the data speaks for itself, that even post-COVID, and even into this polycrisis period, we found ourselves, you know, the story is resilient. You know, and obviously, always trying to balance, you know, adoption and monetization on both, you know, the, you know, the drivers of growth going into the future. The strategy, you'd all be familiar with, I won't talk to all the elements. You can, you've, you know, by now, you probably can say it, you know, you know, kind of off by heart. Four pillars to the strategy. The platforms, the industry leading connectivity.
Internally, our conversations with the team is, you know, the battle to win the rights to do other things is that we must have leading industry-leading connectivity operations. That's where we make 90% of our money, and therefore, we must never lose focus on that. The creating shared value is an important part of our strategy, as you know, obviously, the portfolio work we're doing. The one thing that's new here, I'd like to call out Paul Norman, who's Group HR Head, and the broader leadership team, we've worked a lot on our values.
The MTN values that we've had up to the time the board adopted the new values this year, end of quarter one, have sustained us and been, have underpinned the culture and how we do things around here at MTN. We felt we needed to review, and we spent actually a year working with the business, going up and down through the organizing to say, "What has been good about our past, and what are more aspirational values?" We went through a very organic process, I know for investors, sometimes it seems like this is the, you know, the wooly stuff. I would argue that this is the stuff that creates a foundation for the right culture in a company that then delivers the results.
If you get that wrong, you end up not getting your results. We've done a lot of work, and, you know, these are values that we're busy embedding and entrenching and have a, you know, group-wide program to engage all our OpCos. If we, at group, have these well-embedded, you know, we can sleep kind of easy at night knowing that we have the right people, you know, prosecuting the strategy that we have. I just wanna take a view on, you know, how we are, you know, how we've kind of marked our own homework in terms of progressing on the, some of the KPIs that underpin the strategy as we're progressing.
You, you can probably argue with the, with the, with the colors, but, you know, I think it's, it is helpful to have a conversation, you know, with capital holders around how we're progressing. As Thato mentioned, there's a, you know, the strategy has got many components, and today we won't cover many of them. We're not gonna talk about the progress that we covered at, under ayoba, and other areas. We'll be very selective on the ones that we want to update, where we think it's important for the investors to understand how we're thinking about priorities and where there may be well some shifts. This is how we see. I would argue that on the platform side, largely in progress, on the MoMo, 69 million subs, getting to 100 million. We'll get there.
We feel pretty confident. You will hear from Karl and Eli Hini, how we're thinking about the Nigeria PSB opportunity, and how we think we can scale relatively quickly all the way up to 2025, you know, with the opportunity and the license that we have there in Nigeria. Active data, that's the core engine, 137 million out of 200 million. For those who do the quick math, it means we've got to do 20 million a year to get to 200 million, so we've got to push. I'll talk a little bit about, you know, how we've, you know, we see the CHASE framework and driving, you know, kind of the data growth. Other areas, home, you know, 2.4 million.
Jens, you know, we mark it as amber, but Jens will cover why we believe we'll still get to 10 million, given where we are. In Nigeria, just to give you a little bit of a highlight, you know, Karl will tell you that actually, we're moving pretty quickly with 5G and fixed wireless access in Nigeria. Some of those movements are giving us the confidence that even though you end up at 2.4 million, 10 million is still achievable. Let me not take, you know, Karl and Jens' thunder. Also to pick up on some of the areas in terms of localizations. We mark it as amber because we took an active decision not to progress with further localization in Nigeria, mindful of elections coming through, mindful that we saw liquidity challenges.
It didn't make sense to us to say, "We've done 3.3% of a sell-down in Nigeria. We'll do another, and we'll get stuck with a bunch of nairas that we actually can't get in the." Hence, we took a decision actively and with the board to say we pause on further localization until post-elections. We are actually well arranging ourselves to say, you know, depending on market conditions, you know, ethics availability. All those things working out, in H2, we could move very quickly. Obviously, market conditions are gonna be super important.
Nigeria was the one that we took an active decision to say, "We wanna do it, but we're gonna pause until the conditions are right." I'll come to ARP and structural separations in a bit more detail, you know, in my presentation. Coming back to data, as I said, we're not gonna spend an enormous amount of data. We will cover the data in the SA, Nigeria markets, and in Jens' presentation. In Jens' there's a big focus on the home. I mean, I don't want us to lose the point that actually the near-term economics of the business are really driven by data.
Voice, you know, is one of the areas that we aren't covering in a lot of detail, but voice has surprised us on the upside. When we were putting in our plans, we thought voice by now would be, you know, closer to maybe 1%. You guys have seen that voice actually has remained fairly resilient, supported by price floors in some key markets. Actually, you know, as you look at smartphone adoption, we still have many voice-centric markets that are still going through the transition. Data is the engine that's gonna drive, you know, the company forward, and, you know, it's gonna be approximately 50%, you know, of service revenue, and Tsholo will cover that in a while. The CHASE framework has really been what's driven our agenda across markets around driving data adoption.
The one constraint, and I think it's not a constraint only on MTN, it's one for, you know, emerging markets more broadly, is handsets. Cost of handsets still too high. We really need those handsets at $30 price points and below. If you look at data sets between 4G and 5G, depending on markets, you'll see handsets 3G, you know, $40 - $50s in some markets, 4G, you know, $70 +. We still got to bring the handsets down, and obviously, we play a role in device financing, et cetera. That's been the constraint to foster data adoption, in our view. Affordability has been improved, service bundling is there, and the education is there.
It's the H that is a bit of a constraint, but we're doing quite a lot of work with, you know, OEMs and device financing there. I mean, that's just a bit of a snapshot. On ESG, again, you know, not to spend too much time, you guys are aware, we have a very comprehensive program. We're currently focusing just on three main areas to communicate to investors. We're gonna have two years to three years of momentum, and then we'll continue to unpack the other areas. First one is really around our decarbonization journey. Highly committed to that. Challenges for us last year was obviously the load shedding issue, and we're working through Charles' program, which he'll talk about, and we'll communicate in time how that might affect our near-term, you know, objectives.
We remain committed to the 2030 and 2040. Obviously, with the load shedding, that's actually affected, you know, materially, you know, what we'll have in Scope 1 and 2. Given that we are driving some of the power, going forward, we'll drive on a multipronged approach with ATC and IHS, and Charles and the OEMs, you know, will drive, you know, the other elements. Charles will talk about that. Broadband coverage, doing well. I think in time, we'll be cooperating and partnering, you know, with the LEO satellite, you know, operators. We see this as an opportunity into the future of collaboration rather than competition.
Martin is here in the break, if you wanna talk to Martin about our thought processes, and Lele is also here, about how do we engage, you know, with those, and how we see non-terrestrial and terrestrial networks working together in the future. We've done a lot of work in diversity and inclusion. you know, we put out what we thought were stretch targets. We've moved much quicker on diversity and inclusion, and we're challenging ourselves, actually, to upgrade our targets, and we'll communicate those, in due course.
We've made good progress in women, in senior management. Now we look at these, the 2025 targets, and we say, "You know, you've hit 40%, and you have 41% as a target, you have to kind of upgrade the target," but we'll come back to that. We feel that we are making good progress in that area. As I said, you know, we appreciate all the accolades that we've received so far. On asset realization, as you know, we've monetized ZAR 19 billion out of the ZAR 25 billion. When we started this program, the main anchors around ARP were really further localization in Nigeria and IHS. With IHS, obviously, with where the share price is, you know, for us, it's not a monetization opportunity.
When we reflect on where rates have moved and where tower companies are trading, you know, we're not in a rush to look to monetize. I think it's fair to say to our capital holders that our view is that in the near to medium term, I don't think you should anticipate a sell-down of our 26% share in IHS. We don't have to do it, because the balance sheet is in a good position. You know, for those of you who are calculating and looking at IHS and saying, "Well, these guys will sell the next one or two years," you know, I mean, obviously, you must make your own investment views, but our view is that, you know, we, we're kind of in a hold position with IHS.
It's not responsible for us to try and sell any of those. Let's see what happens to rates, rate markets over time. Let's see how they. I think international investors look at IHS and say it's a 70% Nigeria company, so there is also a proximity to, or at least a view on what's happening in Nigeria with IHS. You know, we are not looking in the near term, you know, to be selling that down, but, you know, if things happen in the future, you know, we'll have that discussion. As I mentioned, Nigeria, the plan is, it remains, we've committed this to the stakeholders, that we want to see the company more localized. We need to wait for market conditions, when those market conditions, you know, are improved, we will act.
Kholekile and his team have done all the work. We know what we need to do and meeting the regulators, we're not gonna pull that plug until we think, you know, it's fair value, and we can get the cash. Nigeria, we have a further 5%. Cameroon, we have a 20%. We've always had this, you know, belief that we need to do another 10%. That's what we had agreed initially with broadband, with our partners, that we would do a follow-on. This is one that will probably be new to you, we're looking to, you know, to execute that kind of in the medium term. We're not gonna say it's gonna be the next six months, you know, again, when conditions are conducive.
We obviously announced, when we talk about portfolio transformation, the main news since Q1 is we are looking at, you know, an orderly exit, if we can agree terms, really around Guinea, Conakry, Guinea, Bissau, Liberia, and we're having that discussion with AXIAN, as you, as you well know. On the strategic rationale for the separations, again, to set our stall, we believe that the best way to run the company in the medium to longer term is have a core connectivity business that has a couple of platforms that are adjacent, but these have relative independence. They have their own, you know,
they own assets, they have their own financial profile, and the best way to run them is to run them in the medium term as separate to the core connectivity. That's our strategic positioning, and we are, as I said, in the progress, particularly on fintech and fiber, you know, to make that progress. We also think that that rationale is the right one, because the regulatory environment in our analysis is going to end us there in the medium term. We better do it ourselves before the regulators do. When we look at fintech, in some markets, they're really asking for the structural separation. We're saying, "Let's lean into this and make most of that." Even on fiber, I think that same regulatory push will happen in market.
The rationale is really about enabling acceleration and scale, and these businesses also operate quite differently, have a different capital profile and return profile. I think what's also very interesting for us as we run the business is, when you start separating the accounts, you start seeing things that you wouldn't see when you have these businesses merged. It also is helping us to really understand where the opportunity for optimizing and improving the financial and operational performance of the businesses. The rationale is really driven about the growth. It's also driven by seeking partnerships that can help us accelerate the growth. Where it makes sense, where it makes sense, we must use partners' capital to improve our own return profile, but only where it makes sense.
You know, we've spoken to the markets that we are looking at bringing minority investments to the FinCo stack. That's in progress, and we gave a timeline that, you know, we're pushing ourselves to the end of H1. We're working with that timeline. Also, on the fiber side, we did announce, and to Fréd, Jens, and the team, who worked super hard on this, for the East to West, you know, we're bringing in Africa50, and we're talking to others about other areas of, you know, building, you know, the fiber platform. My colleagues, Jens and Serigne, will cover that in a bit more detail.
We think that this is really the best and appropriate way to run our businesses, you know, going to the future, and I'm happy to take questions that you may have. Before I hand over to Tsholo to give us a financial framework, and I'll come back a little bit later, I mean, our story is really about the uniqueness of the growth engines. We have a core connectivity business where there's ample opportunity on the African continent. For sure, there are headwinds, but we think we have good assets that allow us to be able to, you know, take advantage of these opportunities. The platforms are giving us, you know, legs for growth, medium to longer term.
I won't go through all of them, but as we discussed, you know, we're not gonna be covering, you know, areas such as digital. If you go on the, on the microsite, again, our teams will give you a context of how we're thinking about some of these platforms. We think that unique engine really is the underpin of the investment case, and our investment case is really one around growth. The demographics, the scale position, we really believe that you've got to be number one or number two. It's too hard to do this job as number three or number four, and we see it across the markets, and we generally, in fact, not generally, we're always number one or number two.
That gives us the ability to be able to withstand shock, but also to be able to take advantage of opportunities. Our financial profile is very strong. Tsholo will talk about it, and we've got a very attractive return profile, and we'll be able to evidence that within our, within our, you know, the results we've delivered. As you leave today, I really would like to believe that you'll take, you know, five key takeaways. You know, is MTN well-positioned, you know, to capture a compelling and unique growth opportunity in Africa? We'll say we are. There are challenges in the near term. We have a plan. We'll navigate through them, and we'll come out the other side much stronger.
You know, and obviously, the team will talk to that. I mean, there are medium-term value unlock opportunities. For sure, we focus on that, but, you know, we've also got to make sure that we run the core business well. Fintech, fiber, and ultimately, IHS over time, you know, enable us to reveal the value that's inherent in the company. The capital allocation framework, I think, by now, it's almost like death by PowerPoint. We are religious about it. Obviously, when we have done the work around the Eurobond, I think, you know, we'll have time for reflection on what the batting order is between that and other capital priorities. Tsholo will talk about that.
I think the most important thing, really, about the MTN team, and I'm humbled and proud to lead such a team, is we have people who are passionate about this continent. This is our home. This is the only place we know. We can't go, you know, to another market and retrench. It's the continent we love, and we have an executive and a leadership team and staff who really believe in this thing of driving digital and financial inclusion across Africa. Real passionate about it, and I think you guys will appreciate the feedback that you'll hear from the teams, from Karl and others, that we are focused on the passion for the continent, but we're also focused on ensuring that we deliver value creation for stakeholders.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me pause there and pass on to Tsholo, and I'll come back for Q&A. Thank you very much.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Today, I've actually been with the company now two years and two months exactly, which is around the same time that we actually unpacked the Ambition 2025 back in 2021, as Ralph indicated. I provide you today with an opportunity to update the group financial framework, as well as the capital allocation framework, having been entrenched in the company now for some time, and having obviously seen the significant performance of the business. If I just go on to the financial framework itself, at our last Capital Markets Day, two years ago, we shared with you our well-developed financial framework, which really underpinned our strong financial performance to date, as well as the execution of our strategy.
With this financial framework in place, we have been able to demonstrate the strong financial performance over the last threex years specifically. Firstly, as you can see, with service revenue growing at mid-teens, being achieved at 15%, at on average 15% over the period. We've also been able to improve our earnings with our Expense Efficiency Programme, yielding ZAR 6.4 billion in cost saving of the 2020 base, which was really in line with our target to the market of ZAR 5 billion. This resulted in us being able to expand margins as well as adjusted headline earnings per share, and now growing at 31% over the period.
CapEx intensity at 17.4% with ZAR 95 billion spent over the year. Thus, this has been able to help us to deliver on attractive free cash flows, resulting in cash upstreaming to Group of about ZAR 56 billion, and also reducing the HoldCo leverage now at 0.8x by the end of 2022 financial year. As we navigate the tough economic environment that we've been talking about, with elevated inflation levels as well as Forex devaluation across the market, this financial formula that we have within this framework actually remains relevant.
Our focus over the medium term, as you can see on the right-hand side, is firstly to grow revenue ahead of inflation, with continued focus on protecting voice as well as growing voice, doubling data, including winning the home, as well as accelerating our FinTech businesses, and some of our FinTech services. Some of my colleagues will be coming later on to share with you the details of our plans. We will endeavor to grow OpEx below inflation, thus expanding our margins and earnings through robust efficiency, cost efficiency initiatives, including mitigating the impact of Forex on our cost structures.
We will also continue with our disciplined allocation of capital, continuously reevaluating our capital expenditure on an ongoing basis for prioritization of revenue generating as well as faster growing areas. This will obviously, as indicated, enable attractive free cash flows with higher cash balances, as well as improved leverage. Maintaining strong liquidity is also very important to us, particularly under these tough economic environment, and we believe it's absolutely imperative to preserve cash. Just to deep dive into our framework, I will start off by looking at our service revenue bearers, and then move on to the contribution by operating companies in our region.
As you can see on the left-hand side, we have made progress in doubling data, as we indicated to you that by 2025, we want to double data. You can see that data revenue now contributes almost 40% to group service revenue from about 25% in 2019. While voice contribution started declining from 58% in 2019 to now 44%, albeit still continuing to grow solidly. Although Fintech has shown some moderate growth than was anticipated over the past three years, as we know, it was largely impacted by the introduction of MoMo taxes in some key Fintech markets and competitive pressures.
We still expect an acceleration of Fintech's revenue with the evolution of basic services to more advanced services, as well as we start accelerating our MoMo PSB in Nigeria. Looking at the graph now on the right-hand side, you will notice that Nigeria has increased its contribution to group service revenue over the period, and this was done through the acceleration of data services as well as solid growth from voice. The WACA region, which was particularly impacted by the introduction of these MoMo taxes, I indicated, as well as some competitive pressure in markets like Cote d'Ivoire, has largely remained flat.
The contribution of WACA to group is expected to increase, however, over the medium term, as a result, for instance, of the reduction of the E-levy that is now reduced to 1% from 1.5% where it started. We're starting to also see competition subsiding in markets like Cote d'Ivoire. We did see a recovery from the in the last quarter of 2022. South Africa service revenue, as you can see, has declined from 26% to 21%, largely as a result of the competitive environment, a sluggish economy. You heard yesterday from the deputy Reserve Bank governor, as well as the impact of load shedding.
We do expect that the execution of our network resilience plan, which Charles will be sharing with you later on, we will see a steady improvement of SA's contribution to Group over time, particularly starting in the second half of the year. To deliver on service revenue growth ahead of inflation, we will continue to drive, you know, selective headline pricing in markets as well as pricing optimization through our CVM initiatives, and both Charles and Karl will be talking to you about that in a more, a bit more detail. Moving on to the next slide, really about how we have been able to deliver on our expense efficiency program and plans that we have in place. You can see, as I indicated, we've delivered now ZAR 6.4 billion, and this was off a 2020 base.
The bulk of our savings were mainly from network and IT, where we actually decommissioned legacy IT, followed by sales, distribution, and marketing, as well as general and administration expenses. You will notice that two-thirds of these savings came from Nigeria and South Africa, followed by the WACA markets at 17%. We will continue with our laser focus on cost reduction to expand our margins over the medium term, given the expected headwinds. We are refreshing now our global cost benchmarking exercise, which we conducted in 2019, to identify additional sustainable cost-saving initiatives over the medium term to identify these savings, this will culminate into an expense efficiency program, which we will call EEP 2.0.
In the meantime, we've identified some low-hanging fruits and quick wins to be implemented in the short term, and we're targeting about ZAR 1.5 billion in this financial year. These include terminating non-critical and support maintenance contracts, as I indicated, on IT legacy as well as IT, as well as networks, renegotiation of terms with our major vendors, and that work is ongoing, optimizing our distribution channels, reviewing our commission structures, a lot of good work happening in South Africa at the moment, as well as the acceleration of our energy efficiency initiatives. Moving on to our working capital and cash release initiatives, which is very important for us, particularly as we grow the business.
Since our last Capital Markets Day, we have made substantial progress in our working capital through reviewing of some of our policies that we have in place and implementing working capital framework and some KPIs across the group. These were really focused around the ability to gain visibility into the OpCo inventories, payment terms, as well as compliance, but also focusing efforts around to cost cash conversion cycles from days inventory payments, as well as sales outstanding. We also benefited from South Africa's cash release initiatives, which yielded close to about ZAR 3 billion, just over ZAR 3 billion in 2024.
Looking forward, we are aiming for additional cash release initiatives of between ZAR 1.5 billion-ZAR 2 billion , which will really be garnered from an additional supply chain financing solutions, device receivable solutions as well, as well as specifically looking at credit collection debtors' book, and also just the supply chain Forex and Forex exchange mitigation. If I can move on to our capital expenditure, Ralph talked about how we continue from a strategy perspective to continue to invest in our networks, but also building the largest platforms. While our CapEx intensity has trended upwards, ending at 18.5% in 2022, we focused on investing in faster growing areas as we structurally see higher demand for data in our platform services.
We will continue to invest to support the growth that we are seeing. This is, if you recall, priority number one on our capital allocation framework. Although, we will make sure that we maintain our targeted range of 15%-18%. We do expect that we will see a marginally muted intensity going forward relative to what we saw in 2022. The focus will continue to be on a more broad-based coverage, including rapid rural rollout program, as well as improvement in the speed of our networks and the growth of our platforms. Very importantly, supporting the network resilience in South Africa to deal with the impacts of load shedding.
As we roll out our CapEx, the emphasis will be on unit cost reductionist and spectrum efficiencies to maximize the value of our CapEx investments. Given the growth opportunity and the challenges at hand, the larger proportion, as you'll see from our CapEx, will come from Nigeria at 36% and South Africa at 23%. If I can move on to the HoldCo leverage as well as the liquidity profile, I am pleased at the progress that we have made so far in ensuring our balance sheet is flexible and can withstand the market volatility, whilst at the same time enabling us to take advantage of market opportunities that are aligned with our Ambition 2024 strategy.
As at the end of 2022, the HoldCo leverage was down to 0.8x, although it did come up by the end of this, the first quarter of this year to 0.9 times, while the group leverage was down to 0.3x from 0.8x in 2022. Our forecast will continue to maintain the HoldCo leverage below 1.5 x through the improvement in our cash upstreaming over the medium term, including additional ARP initiatives, as Ralph indicated earlier on. Also exploring liability management for our Eurobonds to reduce the U.S. dollar debt exposure that we have.
Given the high interest rate environment, we'll also continue to flatten our debt maturity profile that you see on the right-hand side to mitigate the refinancing risk. We reduced our Eurobond 2024, if you recall, from $750 million, which is now at $450 million remaining, and we have plans to continue to early settle, subject to market conditions, assisting us to be able to improve our ZAR to non-ZAR debt mix, which is now sitting at over 63% in terms of ZAR debt. We also upsized our DMTN program to ZAR 35 billion to be able to provide us with alternative sources of liquidity and be able to utilize it where we can from a strategic perspective.
We also issued notes in the DMTN in the 3-7-year maturity window during 2022. From a group consolidated debt expense perspective as well, we will continue to, as much as possible, ensure that we have local currency funding in our markets to mitigate the Forex exposure. Nigeria, I think, currently has about 90% of debt in local currency, and I think in Ghana, has no very little foreign debt, if any, on the balance sheet, which actually bodes well for mitigating that risk. How we've created shareholder value over the period, I'm confident that as a business, we have set ourselves a solid foundation that will see us through the trading environment. Our track record is clear.
From the continued momentum of operational execution, despite the challenges that we have experienced, we have continued to deliver a value to our shareholders with compound average growth rate of 31% on our adjusted headline earnings per share since 2019, and our ROE improving, improvement of 10 percentage points since 2019. The work that we have done so far has ensured that we have a strong cash position to fund the future growth of our business, and this is coupled with the efficiency program that will assist us to protect margin erosion that I indicated. Our disciplined capital allocation, we cannot emphasize that enough, will ensure that we generate reasonable return for our shareholders.
In a nutshell, not only do we have a back business backbone to drive growth, but have the balance sheet to support the delivery of our strategy. I'm comfortable that the financial framework that we have in place, supports our investment case, and that we have sufficient headroom over the medium term to be able to support the growth portfolios, and ultimately drive shareholder returns. Moving on to capital allocation framework, which has really guided our financial discipline and remains relevant in guiding our priorities. It has yielded positive results for our business for a number of reasons. Firstly, as indicated, it's important for us that we continue to invest for growth.
We do invest organically through investments in our network as well as part platforms. Secondly, as Ralph and I have been emphasizing, we are deleveraging the HoldCo balance sheet faster and are focused on reducing the non-ZAR denominated debt over the medium term. Returning cash to shareholders is a key component of our capital allocation framework through ordinary dividend, which we have committed as a minimum ZAR 3.30 per share for the financial year 2023. Selective M&A remains a fourth priority, which is aligned to the objectives of Ambition 2025. This is subject to very strict risk and financial assessment criteria, and we will continue to consider share repurchases and special dividends, if possible, from surplus cash once all the capital allocation priorities that I talked about have been made.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, we are making good progress from a financial perspective, and I want to leave you with a few key points. One, we have built a very strong foundation that will help us navigate the tough trading environment. Our future growth is well-funded, with a financial formula that supports the profitability of the company, benefiting from the efficiencies as well. Our disciplined capital allocation remains relevant, with emphasis on reducing dollar exposure through liability management, whilst our well developed financial framework supports Ambition 2025. Lastly, and most importantly, we are driving shareholder value through growth, cash flows, and dividends. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes my presentation. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Tsholo. Ralph, can you join us, please? Thank you. Tsholo, I see you bought me two minutes. Thank you very much. Right, ladies and gents, we can now just do a Q&A. I'm pretty sure many of you present here physically and also online, have many questions for the CEO and the CFO. For those that are joining via webcast, just pop your questions onto the Q&A tab just below the screen, and I get all those questions here, and I'll make sure that I put as many as possible to the two. Of course, in the room, you just raise your hands. I just have one or two for these two guys. In fact, one each, just to give you guys more time.
Ralph, let me start with you, and let's put the elephant in the room, and that's the Telkom rumors. That there was a time you were engaging Telkom quite robustly. It was well reported, and that seemed to not have worked out as planned. I think it was one week ago, we saw a consortium led by the former CEO there at Telkom also talking about potentially making an acquisition. Any comment on Telkom so far? Where is MTN Telkom discussion right now?
Yeah, I mean, you're right that, you know, last year we spent a bunch of time looking to, you know, engage, Telkom and their board around what we thought would be a deal that is value creative for both companies and the both shareholders, in a TopCo-level deal.
Yeah.
Obviously navigating it through a particular window. These things are complex, so the window also matters. I mean, we're very disciplined about how we wanted, and when we engaged to the point where that discipline wasn't gonna be there, so we pulled away. I mean, I come back to the point of the rationale that we made at this stage, which we, you know. I think there are a couple of points. One is we said that consolidation in South Africa is inevitable. We see that this trend will happen. We thought that there was a combination of the assets, and it's not only a story about Openserve, which we often hear from people, now, it's MTN's only interested, you know, in the fiber. I think there's a combination of frequencies that is powerful.
I think there are use cases in other geographies where you see a combination of frequency creating an advantage. The U.S., I think, is a good example. I think our strategic positioning for the medium term remains that there's a sensible deal that could be had. The deals are complex. As I said, you have to be very disciplined on both sides, that this is the only thing you wanna do. When you reach that stage, then you can progress, and obviously, valuation and everything else and other things do matter. To your point around, you know, the news, I mean, we obviously listen to the news, and we opine. You know, we are a disciplined organization. We don't get driven by headlines.
I mean, if ever there was a deal at the TopCo level, we don't like the asset-level deal. It's just way too complicated. It sounds nice on paper, but there's so many intricacies about valuation, why is the debt sitting there, and all of that. The only way you can kind of deal with it is at the TopCo. Obviously, there's also the TopCo deal will have its own issue in terms of regulatory approvals. You know, I mean, there's nothing we can say to shareholders that, you know, we are reacting to the news. You know, we have to obviously remain strategically agile, you know, on the, on the opportunity, but you'd have to be extremely disciplined about your strategy, you know, going forward.
Got you. Tsholo, my question for you is about dividends. I like dividends. I noted that you didn't mention them, but even though you had a very good presentation that referenced the strong performance, I'm interested, why? Are you worried? Are you holding on to cash because of potential acquisitions? Why no divvies?
I mean, I think as I indicated, and this is one question that has been commonly asked by our shareholders here when we're on roadshows. I mean, it remains a key component of our capital, our location framework, at this point in time, it's just not number one priority. It is important. The business is growing. It's important for us, as I indicated, that we invest for growth and scale the business. That's number one. Number two, as we indicated, we would like to reduce our debt as much as possible to deal with the dollar exposure that we have. Then we obviously pay the dividends. We have committed to a ZAR 3.30 dividend per share for the end of the financial year.
At this stage, we think that that will still materialize, but of course, we do indicate to shareholders on time. Maybe in the future, once we're comfortable where the leverage is at, particularly from a debt mix perspective, you know, priority number three could be number one or number three. Yeah.
All right. I'm gonna open to the floor. I'm gonna take a couple at a time, 'cause I expect a lot. This gentleman with the blue jacket there. Thank you, sir. Just your name and the organization you represent.
Thank you and good morning. It's Mayur from [Metal Industries]. I'm very encouraged by the focus, the laser focus on inflation, plus increases in service revenue in the various markets. Can you just give us some color so that we can appreciate what's the struggle with growing at inflation plus in telco, given the technology and given the regulatory environment as well as the consumer environment? Why is it so difficult to grow at much faster rates than inflation?
Thanks, Mayur. If you don't mind, just let me take one more. Just mind passing it down to the gentleman on the same row there.
Hi, it's Jonathan from JP Morgan. I might have missed it, but previously, I think you'd targeted mobile money revenue contribution of 25% to service revenue by 25%, I didn't see that number there. I think the sub-number is still the same. Just trying to understand. What kind of level would be reasonable now? I mean, obviously, there have been dynamic changes in markets and regulatory interventions, so just trying to understand how you think about that, over the next two years. Thanks.
Yeah. I mean, let me take both, and to top and tail if I've. I mean, just on the, on the service revenue growing higher than inflation, I mean, in pretty much most of the markets, you've got to go to the regulator to apply for tariff increases, as an example. I mean, as I said, there's stuff above the line and below the line, so let's talk about above. That requires regulatory approvals. In some markets, we've been able to get that. Sometimes the regulators resist it for one or two reasons. I mean, I think specifically to Nigeria, and Karl, who can cover this in his own presentation, so I want to ask him to come up.
We had agreed at the industry level that there was going to be a 10%, you know, price up, also to support the number three and number four. You know, the minister set that aside, the former minister set that aside, but we still remain committed to engaging them, because to your point, we're taking on the inflation on the, on the expense side, and obviously, to generate free cash flow to fund future growth, we need sufficient revenue generation. I think that dialogue with regulators, in this storm we're in, I think they're understanding it, because the number three and number fours are all struggling, and they're gonna need some of them are going to need price floors, particularly for voice, to sustain their own economics. The issue is regulatory engagements.
In a market like South Africa, obviously, Charles will speak for himself, and that's an easier conversation, but some of the markets, you need regulatory approvals. Ebenezer and the VPs will talk. Actually, in some markets, we have an arrangement with regulators to be able to, you know, periodically price up because some of them are closer to or in, you know, hyperinflation states. On the point around, the target is there. We're maintaining the guidance for service revenue fintech up to 20%. I mean, we've always framed it as it's underpinned by, you know, the two key assumptions. The one was, when we set up the target, we expected voice to actually grow much slower.
You've got a numerator-denominator effect when you start putting things as a proportion of a ratio. I think there's that dynamic that actually we have a good problem, that data and voice are growing much faster than we thought in the mix. The second was we always put the point that without Nigeria, you know, growing quickly, we're always going to be kind of mid-teens. We needed Nigeria to pivot quite aggressively. I think Karl and team will talk, as will Serigne, that, you know, as you look at the sub-numbers now in Nigeria, actually, we have a plan to, you know, really accelerate now. I don't want to give out their targets, but they're pushing for that. That's what will push to us.
You know, Jonathan, we're going to keep that target there. We're going to push for help to push that. Look, as Tsholo said, you know, we have in our capital allocation framework, you know, number four, selective M&A. We're open to that, but in some territories, we might actually prefer to enter a territory on a mobile money basis, not a GSM basis. For now, we're going to hold that. It's, you know, we're at 10%, and to 20% is far, but we're going to keep pushing, and when we feel that it's not going to be, you know, we're able to get there, I mean, we'll communicate. I think, you know, make your own views, particularly after you hear Serigne and Karl speak about the Nigeria opportunity.
Yeah. If I can just add on the first one, I think, I mean, in a tough macroeconomic environment, it's difficult as well for governments to pass all the inflation, you know, to their consumers. I think you will hear Charles and Karl talk about CVM initiatives. What we do aggressively is to improve the, you know, ERM and ERMB. For us, that's important. As Ralph indicated, some markets we have been able to do headline pricing, but it becomes difficult in a tough macroeconomic environment, yeah.
Let me just take some questions online before I come back to the room. From HSBC, Madhvendra Singh would like to know: "What is your backup plan in case the cash upstream from Nigeria doesn't normalize for a longer period?" I mean, I saw the scrip dividend plans, and I thought, you want to do localization, but you're taking a bit more equity. We heard yesterday from the Nigeria assessment that, you know, there might be some relaxation, but I think it's a fair question. What happens if it doesn't happen? Are you going to keep on doing scrip?
No, I mean, I think we obviously, you know, plan for a number of scenarios. We do think that it's a temporary feature. It's not a permanent feature. We've already, you know, indicated our plans in Nigeria to take the scrip. We, there was an AGM in Ghana as well for the, for, you know, for dividend, and we would be opting before the end of June. We don't see it as a permanent feature, really. I think from a cash perspective, when we plan, we look at various scenarios. We look at the base case, stress case, shock scenarios, and what are the management interventions that we can take then, you know, to cater for those various scenarios.
We're comfortable that, you know, we should be in a good place.
Linked to that, let me come to you, Ralph, is a question around localization. This comes from Cesar Tiron. He's asking: "What is the timeline of the localizations that were mentioned in Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria?
Yeah, I mean, we've, want to be a little bit, flexible with the timelines because, you know, there's no, you know, regulatory pressures, particularly in Nigeria, to say, you know, "You must do this." We went and said.
We think it's right as part of our create shareholder, create value pillar of our strategy, that we have more local ownership of our company. We put out that we're comfortable to get, you know, as far as down as 65% over time. We're committed to that, but we need the window. In Nigeria, for example, the, we should be able to sell down and extract the proceeds. If we sell and it gets locked up, it doesn't make sense. We'd argue that the best store of value, as Tsholo said, we took a decision that that's actually the best store of value relative to, you know, Naira that's sitting in a bank account and actually earning a negative real interest rate.
You heard that story. We, we think that's the best. Nigeria, conditions, Cesar, is if we're in H2, the, you know, we're able to get the dollars out. As I said, Colin Hill and the team have done the work. We know who to go to within Nigeria team, we'll execute. I think we'll get a tranche. We now understand that you probably can sell only 3% at a tranche, you would assume that there are 3% tranches of the 11%, that will get us, you know, through. Ghana, we'll try and get that done, you know, this year. Again, our conversations with the central bank there, with the minister, is look, you know, we wanna do it, but, you know, the central bank must give us the money.
If you can't get the money, you know, give us this dispensation to push your timeline out because the whole thing doesn't work. I mean, Cesar, we have to be kind of flexible. If we give you hard timelines, you hit us on the head when we miss by a month and say, "You said X." I'm saying in the medium term, you know, all things working well, the next 18 months in Nigeria, would want to do the 11%, but it's market conditions, and we need that flexibility.
Of course. Can I take some more in the room? There's a gentleman there. Right there. Keep your hand up, sir. There you go.
Hi, everyone. It's Prashant from Nedbank. I've got two questions. Sorry, Ralph, it's a bit of a timeline 1. I know you mentioned fintech, some announcement by June. I know we just started June, but, you know, any update you can give us on that, we'd appreciate. Secondly, Tsholo, I think this one's more for you on the gearing. I think it's the first time I've seen MTN's whole co-gearing lower than the guys in Midrand, so well done on de-gearing the balance sheet. If the Telkom deal doesn't happen, what's your next lever of M&A that you're looking for in the market? I know you mentioned there are some opportunities or, I mean, is it a case of how low can you go? Thanks.
Can I take a lady? I saw a lady's hand at the back there. We haven't had too many ladies, so, there we go.
Good morning, everyone. Refilwe from Melville Douglas. Tsholo, you mentioned, you know, you have a target for your expense efficiencies of about ZAR 1.5 billion this year. You know, there's a lot of work that's being put through in terms of reducing and, you know, getting up in terms of your cost savings. What is the sustainable level that we can look at going forward?
Right. Let me take one more.
We're gonna forget the questions.
Just one more. Please, indulge me. Yes, sir.
Nadim from SBG Securities. Just one question from my side. On your CapEx priorities, you mentioned the rapid rural rollout. I would just like to understand, you know, whether you see that as giving you the same kind of return on CapEx as your other investments. As, you know, traditionally, rural rollouts haven't been very accretive. I would just like to understand the opportunity you see there and how accretive it will be.
I'm gonna remember the rural question. You guys must remember the first two.
On the timeline one, we said, you know, by end of June. Today is 1 June. The end of June, we just started the month. I know what you're trying to get out of me, we said in June.
I mean, I think, Prashant, I mean, we're not looking at anything at the moment. I think, you know, if we do, shareholders would be advised accordingly based on, you know, our regulations. I think we've indicated that we continuously look and explore what could obviously grow and scale our business, and, you know, we continuously do that. I think at the levels that we are, it's important that, you know, yes, we have not yet extinguished the dollar debt, but we have intentions to do that, subject to market conditions. We've always said that, you know, our leverage and, obviously, dividend is based on, you know, stable cash flows from South Africa. Other dependencies on the, you know, dividend would be, are we able to, you know, upstream successfully from the markets?
We're taking a prudent approach at this stage, given, you know, the expected headwinds, and we're comfortable with the 1.5 x at this point in time for those reasons. I think on the Expense Efficiency Programme, as I indicated, we are busy, you know, looking at our global cost benchmarking exercise. If you recall, we did that in 2019, and that's how we actually came up with a ZAR 5 billion target. We've been able to achieve ZAR 6.4 billion. It's important to refresh it now and look at what is, what are other, you know, global peers doing, relative to what we've been doing. Is there anything more that we have missed, anything that we can course correct? When the time is right, we'll be able to provide, you know, a target for the medium term.
The forecast for this year is that ZAR 1.5 billion .
Got you.
Rural?
I just wanted to pick up on the M&A question, is that, just the framework. For us, M&A would work in a sense of, you know, in-market consolidation opportunities or ones that enable us to push one of our strategic pillars. You know, looking at new markets, and obviously we have people who do that. And, in the near term, I think we would stretch ourselves a little bit too much. The in-market consolidation, and also, you know, M&A that helps our key platform businesses, so fintech and fiber. I mentioned fintech earlier, but you could equally say fiber. So that's how we would think about it in the near term, but obviously we're gonna remain agile on the strategy question. You said you remember the local.
Investment in rural?
Yeah, the, yeah, the investment in rural, I mean, it's not a big amount, but it's a very important nation state issue. You know, when you roll out networks, the guys in the urban areas, you know, the regulators, you saw the minister yesterday, he's gonna go out to the rural area to. Then there's no network, and people complain. So we've got to arrange the. You can, you can ask Maz on this question, but we have to find a model that works, where actually we. Yes, you're not monetizing that network as much as you would in the urban areas, but kind of for social cohesion and, you know, our own ESG ambitions, it's very important.
You don't want to have a kind of a digital underclass in a country. You've got to fit it in the envelope somewhat. It's a really important nation. You're gonna have the regulators coming to you, QOS, and all other things, and you know, it's a rod for your back if you don't do it well.
Great.
Maybe just to also add, I mean, for avoidance of doubt, we do have a very robust value-based capital allocation, where we assess all the investments, you know, from sustainable value foundation, et cetera. We're quite clear around that, and of course, you know, there are some of those that we call sustainable, that Ralph indicates that we accommodate in our envelope. Yeah.
Two quick ones from the webcast. another timing one for you, Tsholo. To the CFO, this comes from Tindani and Victor Scott: "Can you give me more color regarding timeframes on settling the euro and U.S. dollar debt?"
Yeah, I mean, as I indicated, we are exploring it. We've already, you know, early settled part of the 2024s last year, around September. We, the, you know, the 2024s actually expire next year, November. We don't want a situation where we forced to refinance, so we are working, you know, currently on that. Subject to market conditions, hopefully we'll be able to do it sometime this year, if not before, you know, they expire next year. Yeah.
Great. I'm gonna give a chance to one more round. Yes, sir?
Thank you. Thanks, Jaynesh from Mazi Asset Management. Just on portfolio optimization, I think we're on 19 markets, with, you know, you're in discussions to sell three West African ones. Is, you know, after that, is the portfolio now optimal? I know you also. You did bid for a license in Ethiopia. You know, presumably, if that comes up again, would you be looking at entering Ethiopia? Yeah, that's it. Thanks.
Great. Oh, gentleman behind the lady. Hey, keep your hand up, sir, I can find you. Thank you. That'll be our last question for this round. Thanks.
Good morning, everyone, Lawrence from KPMG in Nigeria. Three questions in one. The first one, I understand yesterday, when Bismarck made his presentation, he spoke about the currency devaluation in Nigeria. I got in this morning, and the first headline I saw, currency got devalued by almost 48%. The projections we saw, I don't know if Ralph and Tsholo, you know, we've considered, you know, if an almost 50% devaluation. Question two, any plans to play in the generative AI space? We see big trends, big news in the AI space, and as we think about the tech core ambition of, you know, the telecoms model, any plans to play in the generative AI space? The third question is on 5G. How well is this, you know, giving us returns, especially given that the OEMs like Huawei and Ericsson are already thinking the next G. Thank you.
Thanks, Lawrence. Thanks for those questions. Should we kick off with the optimal portfolio question from Mazi first?
Yeah. Look, I mean, the portfolio, we said we want a Pan-African portfolio, but we want a portfolio also where the markets are generating, you know, they can fund their own growth, so to speak. we're down, you know, to 19. We're assessing the three, and if we conclude that, and obviously, I mean, it's an ongoing assessment, but I can't sit to you and say, they're watching briefs beyond those three.
I think in investor discussions in prior years, we're always saying that there are some markets, there's watching brief. Those are the three watching brief markets. We're not watching brief any other markets as we speak today. On Ethiopia, I mean, we've got our hands full. You know, there's only so many of these people here. You know, we went in, we looked at the thing. We could pay $600. We couldn't pay $850. We couldn't see the return profile at $850, so we walked away. We'd have loved to have been there. Again, on the market structure, we said we'd prefer to be number one and number two. Number three is battle. We know everywhere.
You know, doesn't look like there is an opportunity to be number one and number two in those markets. I mean, we looked at the process that is underway, you know, we pulled back from it. As I said, we've got our hands full. On the issue of 5G monetization, are we getting? Let's leave that question to the Nigeria, to Karl and to Charles to answer that. On the issue of the rate, I knew somebody was gonna ask in the session, so let me ask Karl to respond to that.
Sure.
Okay, thank you, all.
You can shout.
As of now, it remains a rumor. We understand that the central bank will be releasing a formal statement around this. It's one newspaper that published this.
Yeah. Daily Trust.
The Daily Trust. Again, this is intelligence. I give you no certainty.
Karl, you need to start again, 'cause the guys, the virtual folk won't hear you.
The first thing is, it remains a rumor. One newspaper published this, and there's been no further news on this. Our intelligence is, it has not yet happened. Our intelligence also says that I think we've all said that we there's a consensus that there will be a devaluation. Bismarck said pretty much the same. We sense that there will first be an appointment of the Minister of Finance before that step is taken, so that there's a consistency of the policy and the follow-up actions for that. I think that should put it to bed. We understand, I don't know if it's true or not, that the central bank itself may be coming out with a statement to make it clear that this is nothing but a rumor.
Modupe will speak to how devaluation affects MTN Nigeria. I'd suggest to you that there's two anchors. First is 80% of our telco contracts that are anchored partially on the CBN rate. There's a higher element as well, official rate. The rest of our transactions are somewhere in the 550-560 range. That should give you a holistic picture. We'll speak a bit more about it during the Nigeria section. Thank you.
Great stuff. Thanks for that. AI, generative AI?
Yeah, generative AI. I mean, you know, Mazen is probably the expert here, but maybe I'm being told we've run out of time. I mean, for sure, we're exploring how generative AI is an overlay across our business. I mean, all, you know, businesses are thinking about kind of the use cases and applications, at, you know, across the piece. You know, for us, you know, it is an area we're exploring. I mean, I'd probably give you a short answer, that we're not getting left behind, in adopting these technology trends.
Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for our Group CEO and CFO. Thank you. Right. That was longer than I expected, but I guess, you know, it is the Group President and CEO and the Group CFO. Thank you very much for your participation, both in the room and also at home. Karl, thanks for stepping in on the hot news off the press. It's always quite interesting how these things turn on the day we are having the Capital Markets Day. Hey? All right, ladies and gents, we're gonna move on to South Africa right now. MTN South Africa CEO, Charles Molapisi, and the MTN South Africa CFO, Dineo Molefe, are ready to talk to us about the South African market.
As you know, MTN South Africa was the first of the group's 19 operations, having started operating in the dawn of democracy back in 1994. It now accounts for around a fifth of both group service revenue and also group EBITDA. We heard yesterday about the macroeconomic environment of South Africa. We heard yesterday about the challenges around load shedding and the power crisis, Charles and Dineo will talk us through where the business is right now, and also we'll have a Q&A as soon as they are done. Before they get on stage, let's get a glimpse of the MTN operations here in South Africa.
MTN's commitment to South Africa runs deep in our DNA. Our commitment is founded in the rhythmic beats, which communicated from village to village since time immemorial. For 30 years, we have been at the heart of the memories made and journeys shared. Our investments have so far touched over 36.5 million customers, whom we have grown with over the years, as they partner with us in delivering a world-class network. Over the past 5 years, we have recorded steady growth, such as by the end of 2023, MTN will have invested ZAR 50 billion in capital expenditure. We believe in South Africa, which is why we have spent billions on our network that connects the nation, the technology that drives it, and on the stores and services that make MTN accessible to as many South Africans as possible.
Like so many industries, mobile operators have had to move with speed to counter the impacts of COVID-19, persistent load shedding, as well as the theft and vandalism, which is negatively affecting our infrastructure. For our part, MTN SA is accelerating its network resilience drive. The investment will see us installing solar power, batteries, and generators, and enhancing security features at base stations to ensure improved network availability. MTN SA is making strides in providing sustainable energy through the rollout of a 4-phase green energy program. The first phase of the solar project involves a ZAR 120 million investment at our MTN Fairlands campus, and will be followed with a phase 2 project to build an estimated 6-megawatt generation facility located alongside the campus. Planned initiatives include on-site renewables deployment, off-site renewable power purchase agreements, and driving energy efficiencies in all our buildings and throughout our operations.
The communities that we serve are an important focus for us, and in 2022, MTN SA contributed ZAR 73 million across the country through the MTN Foundation. These investments focused on the digitization of education, skills development, and developing entrepreneurs. In 2022, MTN's fresh and youthful brand was named the most valuable South African brand by Kantar BrandZ. We remain focused on ensuring that our customers and the communities we serve have access to the highest quality network and the latest technologies. Whether your connection to MTN is through our stores, suppliers, ayoba, the Night Shift, MTN 8, or the world's champion Springboks, we are very proud to be MTN everywhere you go.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Myself and the CFO will take you through the SA story. There's about maybe, let's say, four to five exam questions that we need to answer today. Some of them have been mentioned about, you know, operation in the macroeconomic environment today, pressures of inflation. We'd also like to give a bit of color around load shedding and what we're doing from a South African context. I think also, you know, with the guidance that has been given, I would like to believe that one of the things that you're concerned about is that what is it? What is the growth formula? What is the growth equation from MTN SA perspective?
We'll touch a little bit on that, and then, and maybe just give a bit of context in terms of our ability to execute. Do we have the management and the profile to be able to execute the strategy as we see it? On this chart, we give a little bit of a glance of the profile of MTN South Africa. Number two in the market, 30% market share. Ralph spoke quite at length around data as a future growth of the business. I'm requesting that you look at this chart with a data lens. If you do that, you'll see that the smartphone penetration in this market for us is about 80%. Very, very important. That delivers 46% data revenue contribution.
If you look at the portfolio of our revenue, 46% of our revenue comes from data. Another key highlight here is that 59% of our customers are active data subs. 59%. You've got about 80% smartphone penetration, then you've got 59% active data users. There's room for growth, and there's a case we're making in terms of the ability for us to be able to scale this business continuously to grow based on data. If you ask me and say, the level of investment we're investing to look over that in terms of the capital framework. Also, if you look at the spectral assets, are we resourced correctly, are we investing correctly? Do we have the right spectrum to be able to deploy these frequencies? Yes, we have.
We've got about additional 100 MHz that we got last year. On that, we've got about the 2.6 and a 3.5. They'll be able to use going forward, to be able to enhance the profile of this business as we put data at the forefront of growth for the business. On the margin side, still within guidance at the 8.5%, and service revenue, again, we continue to grow service revenue in the business. The key highlight, like I said, you know, look at this slide largely from a data lens perspective. One element which I'll touch on in the next charts, is about the home broadband. What is MTN strategic posture when it comes to home broadband?
The operating context, we had yesterday, I mean, Dr. Schatz spoke quite eloquently around the pressures of macros. You know, that induced, of course, by load shedding. The implication of that, of course, is that you've got a subdued, medium-term economic growth. Then, of course, we've got the pressure points in terms, of course, at the inflation level. What that means, really, in the end, and the question that, you know, I will have to answer, is that what then do we do when we deal with a customer with such a very compressed wallet? What are the instruments that we have as a business to be able to still grow within that? On the far right, we're just making a call-out around, you know, 4G and 5G penetration. We see that as a growth lever of this business going forward.
25% population coverage on 5G, a significant deployment of the 2.6 MHz spectrum. We see that a particular level of growth that will still continue to come through going forward. The market structure in terms of where we stand, you know, key call-out, let me talk about maybe the EBITDA profile of the business at 38.5%, pretty much in line with the competition. CapEx intensity, 17%, the competition at 13%. Market share, like I spoke earlier, when I said 30%. I guess what's important is that what are the unique identifiers that we have as a business to compete? What do we have? As a business, we've got the most valuable brand, as MTN. It's good lever for us. That brand equity is very, very important.
We're making a very strong call-out about the best network five years running. For the past five years, we continue to win the best network. I know that there could be a question to say, "Look, Charles, but, you know, load shedding pressures, is the network still the way it is," and all of that. I'll say to you, the investment we're making on load shedding will restore that network shape quite easily. Best network five years running. Strong market share gains. You know, we look at our growth on postpaid and enterprise, which I'll give a little bit more color on enterprise and postpaid later on. Of course, the largest mobile wholesale network.
I'll spend a bit of time on that as well, just to double-click on it and say, what does it mean in the context of the South African, you know, broader telco landscape? Continued double-digit growth on data revenue. If we say that data is a clear growth path in the immediate term, in the midterm, we're saying in MTN SA, we're continuing double-digit growth on data revenue. Regulatory, you know, we all know, I mean, it's regulatory landscape is quite fluid, but I will, I'll spend time maybe just dealing with one or two. We had a spectrum auction, we're very successful. Like I spoke earlier, 100 MHz that we got. The 800 is still not cleaned up, the 800, you know, partially paid for, that is still not fully deployed.
There's still engagement on that. We're very clear in, you know, discussing with the government in terms of digital migration. We know what the government's aspirations and plans are. The key one, again, is, you know, the sunsetting of legacy network. In our network, we've got about, is it 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G network. We've got a four-layered network in terms of technology layers. We think that we can take out the 3G layer. When we do that gives us opportunity to be able to repurpose the frequency for the deployment of 4G. Not only that, there's a lot of cost that's sitting in terms of transmission infrastructure that we'll be able to unlock, and of course, we can take the frequency and be able to deploy for something else. Very, very key.
I'll have to caution and say we still have about 5.6 million or so, 5.6 million customers who are sitting on 3G devices. It's a collective effort together with our partners, yeah, the likes of Pepkor, in terms of how we're going to move our customers from, let's say, 3G to 4G and eventually 5G. I'll talk about Ambition 2025. How are we prosecuting our strategy from Ambition 2025 perspective, and SA's contribution to the broader Ambition 2025? Let me just start maybe with, let's say, mobile money. 200,000 customers in 2020 when we started, and remind the audience that this is a business that is three years old.
We're looking at this as Ambition 2025 for MoMo, we should deliver, let's say, a range of 3-5 in terms of the number of customers we're looking at. Enterprise business, a significant engine of growth. We expect that this business, as you go into the next, let's say, 2-3 years, the ambition is very clear. 15%-20% revenue contribution needs to come from this business. Wholesale, I'll talk a little bit more still about wholesale, but if you look at where we are today, ZAR 5.5 billion of revenue that has been generated from the whole business, wholesale business, with a significant level of upside, which I'll give a little bit of color. I mean, if you look at 2025, the ambition is very clear. We say ZAR 6 billion-ZAR 7 billion.
In terms of driving industry-leading connectivity, I spoke about 80 data subs at 90 million in 2022. For us to really make a dent and to secure this business in terms of data growth, we need to get these customers in the range of 25 million-30 million. Already with 80% of smartphone penetration, you have headroom to be able to onboard as many customers as possible to take them to 25 million and 30 million for active data subs. Home broadband, I think, is a question that a lot of people have, and I'll leave it until in my next slide to give a little more context. Let me spend a little bit of time on this, because I think everybody wants to understand where will the money come from, where will the growth come from?
See the this in terms of, let's say, the sigmoid curve, the growth curves of the business. Three that you see on the chart, and three that are coming on the next chart. At the core of it, is that the consumer business is still a significant part of the business at a prepaid and postpaid level, quite significant. Double-click on that consumer business, you'll see prepaid at a 49% revenue contribution. Further double-click gives you about 13% double-digit data growth. If you said to me, "Look, voice is under pressure, voice is declining," of course, I say, "It's a migration from, you know, a circuit-switched voice to packet-switched voice." You're seeing that moving into the data packet.
Data, even within the prepaid segment, has remained resilient and a proper clear line of growth going forward. What are some of the things that has been stalling or derailed the growth of the prepaid? What are some of the challenges we've been having? I'll call it airtime. I'll say in the market where our peers today, you know, advance, item advance, if we call it that way. Our peers in this market are sitting around 40%-45% airtime penetration, and we're sitting at 26%, 24%-26% range. That handbrake has to be removed. What have we done today? This morning, we went live with a new partner, Optasia, to remove this challenge that we've been having for a long time, on the previous partner.
That should unlock that. We need to get this airtime profile from 26% to 45% in peer-to-peer comparison. There is room to be able to do that. That will be able to happen. There was a question earlier on around, you know, price increases and inflation-based pricing. What we have done in this market, we've done price ups, or inflow plan, on prepaid, ZAR 0.99-ZAR 1.50. We have the lever to be able to scale up and price up. Also, you know, let's talk about CVM. One of the biggest challenges has always been that our competitor is much more robust with proper CVM or dynamic pricing, a program or plan. I'll give a little bit more indication on what we're doing and what we're investing.
We think that once you remove the handbrakes, once you remove the pressure to be hitting airtime, ability to price up, deploy CVM, and of course, fix logistics, which I'll cover. We can be able to get some uplift in that prepaid segment, which is still significant at 49%. The bottom of that is postpaid. We are under-indexed when it comes to postpaid in the market, so there is room for us to grow within the existing incumbents. Today, the postpaid business contribute 18%, data growth about 8%. We took a price up early in the year. What are the things that we also have to fix? This also applies to both prepaid and postpaid. It is the simplification or the standardization for price plans.
On the prepaid side, if I could go back to that, is that we have this, you know, surgical delayering of the price points that we are doing and simplifying the price points that you have in the market. I always say that, our consumer executive Ernst, who is here, we say the principle for our pricing is that one for 20. For one new price plan, 20 must be retired, because all of that legacy price plans that are sitting there, a lot of leakage that we're removing out of the system. Product simplification. Also on postpaid, Wanda Matandela is our executive who runs commercial operations, and we constantly say that this business has grown postpaid traditionally on only two channels. What we call the BRC, the branded retail channel, or telesales, largely. Just two channels.
If you look at maybe the incumbents or the competitors in the market today, you see multiple channel points. We're closing that gap. I'm not talking here about setting up brick-and-mortar and setting up new stores. I'm saying there are existing channels that we never participated in, that we are now unlocking to be able to open up, to be able to compete, and be able to grow the postpaid base. There is definitely room for growth when it comes to that. Another point we're making, we're saying digital first. There's always a temptation when you look at companies like us, as legacy businesses, and the new ones who come on board who call themselves digital players, and to believe that we don't have the DNA to be digital ourselves. That's not the case here.
We are building inside MTN a proper digital-first online platform for proper journey, onboarding, upgrade for postpaid. That will enable us to deal with a couple of things. Lastly, the deployment, in terms of customer provisioning, but also the pressure around cost of sales. That is also one of the interventions that we are doing to address that. That is the equation on the consumer side, prepaid and postpaid. What about enterprise? Very often I get asked about enterprise, we're saying, "Is this public sector-based? Is this sustainable? Is this just mobile?" The answer is this: This is multi-segment-based enterprise, large enterprises, SMEs. Very resilient mix within that enterprise portfolio. The work that we've done in the last three years has delivered quite significantly when you look at the type of revenue mix that we have.
Well diversified in terms of the customer portfolio, but also diversified in terms of the products themselves. Core, core voice, mobile, that is in there, connectivity, and of course, digital services. I want to double-click on connectivity just to make a point. We're calling out on the chart that you're looking at, that we own the Gauteng Broadband Network, GBN. What you should gather from this, is that this GBN was never won from an MNO. This is not a competition against the MNO. There are many other players in the market who are participating in the connectivity space, that we are going after those deals. You can see that we managed to win the GBN from Altron, and there are many of this nature.
When we're saying that we are diversified in terms of our ability to compete in the market, we are not just focused in enterprise, that we only want to compete with MNOs. There is a lot to farm out still, to be able to deliver the enterprise value, going forward. I spoke about the segment, I talked about the segment is diversified, but the digital services is an element I also want to double-click on. When I say digital services here, I'm not talking about traditional hosting platform, server-based, infrastructure hosting. I'm talking about cloud, UCC, unified communications, security. Today, as a MTN enterprise business, we now run for the MTN Group, the service operation center for information security. That is being run and built under MTN enterprise business. We are building the capability within.
This ambition of 14% or 15%-20%, we definitely believe that is reachable, as we go forward. That will also help us, as we move forward, to further the risk, the president might pick up on prepaid. Wholesale. Our view is this, that this market is ripe and will definitely consolidate on a number of levels. This market will consolidate at the ISP layer. Definitely, there's too many ISPs that will definitely consolidate, and it's happening now. This market is going to consolidate at the FNO level, and it's also going to consolidate in terms of infrastructure play, in terms of the number of MNOs who can provide infrastructure. That's why we're positioning ourselves as a network of networks. Today, we are concluding by end of this month, the entire Cell C traffic will be running on the MTN network.
We've taken KZN, for Telkom, it's now onboarded, and there's opportunities for further growth. That sets us apart in terms of our ability to carry this traffic and position ourselves as a true network of networks. We're also enabling large-scale MVNOs, but also what excites me is the journey management that we're building, the platform that we're building. The proper BSS and OSS tech that we're building to enable much more seamless integration and onboarding of customers. The picture that you see before you says this: It says that in the immediate, we'll continue, and we have the instruments to try and manage the prepaid voice part of the business. We see data as a key element of growth. We are removing the handbrakes that have been derailing the prepaid business. We're expanding the channel base for postpaid to be able to grow.
We're making our product portfolio much more simpler and easy to be able to onboard new customers, and we're growing the channel. The nascent areas of business, like I said, look at this in terms of the Sigmoid curve. You have to look at, these are really the base layer of growth, very early and nascent platforms. I want to talk a little bit about home broadband and say that just to be very clear, there is no strategic incoherence or maybe organizational inertia in terms of our ability to execute on the home, at least in the last year. We know that we've fallen behind in terms of home, but we're working very hard to catch up. There's a lot of focus that we are doing here, but the biggest focus right now is that let's exploit the fixed wireless access on 5G.
Let's exploit the LTE network. Ralph Mupita spoke earlier on and said that, you know, in the U.S., we are seeing the fixed wireless access is outpacing normal wire or fiber into the home. We wanna take advantage of that and utilize the spectrum that we have at 25% population coverage while building it up. Very, very, very clear area of growth. Fintech, the fintech here is broken into two. You've got a traditional mobile money that sits in here, and then you've got XtraTime. Okay? I have a slide on mobile money, I'll give that a little bit more of focus. XtraTime, like I said, 26% recharge profile is just not good enough.
Like I said, we've spent time, we've launched the platform, we brought a new partner, and we're confident that going forward, we'll be able to deliver a much more penetration than what we have today. Digital, again, nascent business. We think there's room to grow. In the next few months, we'll be making announcements on the OTT Plus that we're integrating. Essentially, with digital, we're saying we're moving away from selling what we used to call, like, naked internet. We're moving to much more layered services that as we sell the package, as we sell that, it comes with streaming services and all. That is a clear area of growth for us. I've taken you through what we call the equation or the revenue formula.
I'm saying to you, there's a clear core business that we continue to harvest. Enterprise business, clear line of growth. You've got digital as nascent businesses, and fintech, and home broadband, but you also earn cut on data revenue as a key growth lever. Okay. The question again was managing in a challenging environment, driving commercial momentum, the pressures of inflation. Four pillars that you are calling out, some of them I've covered already: commercial, supply chain, IT and network, and financial resilience. CVM, CVM, dynamic pricing, I'll deal with it. I spoke about, you know, surgically delayering the price plans, driving adoption of digital services to try and remove commissionable cost of sales and move towards more self-service and self-recharge, and aggressively manage the device margins. Supply chain, a longer focus on vendor, consolidation.
With a plethora of IT partners in the ecosystem, we are shrinking that base. Spoke about energy, and energy security, which I covered it in terms of load shedding. Of course, maybe look at full virtualization and moving to the cloud around IT and network. Financial resilience, I'll leave that to a CFO. We'll double-click on what we're doing around cost efficiencies. You know, what are we doing to be able to try and hedge and manage the portfolio and eventually deliver the required level of margin? Load shedding. The message mentioned yesterday, about the impact of load shedding on the economy, I think landed well, sounds very positive. I think James was very clear that this is like two bookends.
I guess the question is that if these are two bookends, then where does MTN play, and how do you choose to prosecute this issue? The assumption that we're making is that we are pretty much at the relatively worst stage that we can be, listening to what he said. We're taking that view and we're making investment based on that. What are we doing? We said that we communicated to the investor that we are going to help ourselves, we're going to bring multiple vendors to be able to help us to drive this. We've done so. A couple of things we've done, site hardening solutions that we have done, battery solutions that we're deploying, static gensets and mobile gensets.
That is the interventions that we're doing to make sure that we counter the effects of load shedding. I think you've heard the announcement, the energy user and supply block exemptions that came because of the industry associations lobbying at the ministry. Eventually, they're now allowing us to be able to share energy between ourselves, that is, ourselves and Vodacom, I may say. That engagement has started, so we believe that we can share gensets. If we have 2,000 sites where we share, they can deploy on this site, we can deploy on this site, draft proper SLAs. That engagement started immediately when this directive was given. Visible wins, I'll double-click on it a little bit more when I come to you. I said the strategy is based this way.
You asked me, and said: How do you decide to invest? The base layer of investment on load shedding is batteries, and then you move to static gensets, then you deploy solar panels, and of course, portable gensets, which I'll talk about. This is all contextual. It's based on the site, it's a hub site or not. You know, so we make decisions based on revenue profile, the criticality of the site, and then we deploy according to that. The portable genset one, I'll give the credit to Rami Farah, who has joined us from MTN Irancell. We've got this innovation, where we have field engineers who have cars, who are managing our active infrastructure on the sites, we are giving them all gen sets.
30 gen sets in Soweto. When there's load shedding in Diepkloof, we plug them. When it moves to Protea, we move those to Protea, the FMEs. Just to show you the extent of the level of detail required to be able to manage this problem. With what we have done and interventions we have done, the question should be: What then, has been the improvement? Availability has improved, which is, on the sites that we have done proper management for stage six and stage eight, we are seeing clear improvement in terms of data volumes, clear improvement in terms of net, network availability.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think the point I'm making is that we are confident that the interventions that we promised, that when we met you earlier in the year, when we were saying that we are embarking on self-help, multiple partner approach, it is definitely yielding the results. We'll now execute this for the next six months, and we believe that as we do that, we'll position this business practically in a much better situation than it is. The CVM or dynamic pricing, I spoke about it earlier to say that one of the challenges that we've had in terms of ability to grow the prepaid business, has been the lack of capability around CVM. What do you need for CVM?
First of all, you need a platform, which we have now bring Oracle on board, so we've got a platform. You need the capability, you need the people, the data scientists who are doing that now. You also need to make sure that you've got the proper shout-out in the market. For the first time now, we have a very clear call-out in the market of our campaign, Made for You, which we have positioned as the home for value. Which we've never really, in the past, positioned it very, very clearly. Customers know now, when I'm looking for value, where do I go? You can contrast this with the Just for You proposition, just to give you the context of what we're talking about. Very, very well positioned today.
What we need to do is to make sure that this is cross-channel integration. What I mean cross-channel, I mean that you must find value when you go to to MoMo. You must find value when you go to the store. The engine will pop up and position value across all different channels. Central engine, central offers, exposed on multiple channels. What has been the performance? So far, 4% year-on-year improvement, 11% increase in average spend per user, is now contributing 24%, and the drive is very, very clear. With the push we have done in terms of positioning, the platform, the skills levels, cross-channel integration, we are now aiming for 2025 to make sure that the dynamic pricing platform contributes 40% of the total bundle revenue.
Fintech, I know a lot of people think about fintech, they think it is in the SA context, compared to other markets, that maybe the ambition is not as exciting. We believe there's a clear story for fintech and mobile money in South Africa. Just the same as the level of trading that happens in markets like Ghana, happens in this market in Soweto, in Zandspruit, in Eldos. People trade on the street. We can digitize the payment today. Our aim is very clear: We'll grow this, the subscriber base by 2025. The ambition is very clear, 5 million. We're now launching the product called Motherland. Brad, Bradwin Roper and the team are launching a proposal called Motherland, which is international remittance. Personal loans, we're launching that.
Expansion of MoMo Pay, like I say, all the traders, in the villages, in the street, who are able to use Mobile Money to transact. The target is clear in terms of to make this happen, you need about 30,000 merchants, 50,000 agent base. That, we believe that will be able to deliver the ambition that we have of the 5 million subscriber base on the fintech platform. I'll now hand over to the Chief Financial Officer, Dineo Molefe , to take us through the financial framework and performance. Dineo?
Thank you, Charles, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I will take you through the financial framework, which essentially supports the strategy that Charles has outlined. I'll cover the financial performance for the past period, and the, and the framework as we see, in the short, in the medium term. The financial framework that we are positioning is aligned with the group financial framework, and it really is overlapped on the, on the principle that we need to be able to deliver solid, stable, and attractive free cash flows. It is also premised on service revenue growing on aggregate within inflation range levels, and then having a cost structure that is optimal, so that the balance of the formula allows us to be able to be profitable.
In the past three years, we have grown service revenue at a CAGR rate of 5%, despite the decline in consumer voice, which was more pronounced in the 2022 financial year. In the medium term, we remain with a medium-term guidance of 4%-6% on service revenue growth, which is an aggregate growth. You have to think about our service revenue within a market or within the context of what is the mix. If you look at the growth formula that Charles has shared, the prepaid business isn't a business that would deliver inflation-level type of growth. However, the enterprise business, the wholesale business, and then the growth areas going forward, and hence we are confident about the 4%-6% story that we have.
Charles has mentioned that our growth is largely a data story, where we will grow double digits, even in the medium term. The portfolio simplification that we are doing, as well as reducing the amount of free traffic, is really to aim at improving effective rates. Together with CVM, as we continue to deploy CVM initiatives, this will improve effective rates and hence improve profitability as well. The price increases that we've communicated earlier in the year, we have implemented in postpaid, in enterprise, as well as in prepaid voice, and in some parts of the fintech business as well. We've seen an uplift in terms of revenue profitability. Residential is quite important for us, and the thing that we like about residential is that it does tend to have more resilient ARPU levels.
Even as we continue to connect customers, the ARPU levels are quite resilient in this space. Fintech and digital, we are investing quite a lot in terms of expanding the channel and the footprint. Most especially when you think about the fintech business, it is a mass customer business, and you need to be able to reach as many customers as possible. We are investing in terms of channel there. Collectively, we believe that these investments will allow us to be able to attain revenue of 4%-6%. In the environment that you're operating in, underpinning this ambition is the ability to invest in resilience, which we are doing.
We've seen that as we've started the journey of improving the network availability, revenue performance is improving, and we're quite confident about the performance of half two being better than what we would see in half one, as we've previously communicated. Now, looking at EBITDA margins, we have guided 37%-39%, which, as a reminder, has absorbed the increased cost of load shedding. You would be reminded that we've communicated that the increased cost of providing for power had a 1.2 percentage point impact on our margins, and the increase in group management fees had an impact of 0.8 percentage points. In terms of CapEx, we are guiding a range of 15%-17%. However, we do see that in the short term, the 17%.
We would be higher than the 17% as we accelerate the investment in resilience. In 2022, we attained a CapEx intensity of 17.4%, and we have invested about $25 billion in the network over the past three years. Tsholo mentioned earlier, the point around value-based capital allocation framework, which we've also adopted in the SA business. It's quite important that as we deploy capital, especially in this environment, that we are focused, and we are deploying in a way that will ensure returns are protected for the business. Moving on to EBITDA performance and cost efficiencies. When you look at our performance in terms of EBITDA, we have moved from 39% in 2020, to 38.9% in 2021, and 38.5%, which we've reported in 2022. Some key call-outs in terms of EBITDA.
For 2022, load shedding had a 0.9 percentage point impact on what we reported, and therefore, we would have reported 39.4%, excluding that impact. The profits from the tower disposals had a 0.7 percentage point impact on the reported margin as well. You would notice that 38.9% of 2021 is below the 39% that we previously had as guidance. That is really because in the 2021 year, we were impacted by the provisions for share-based payments. When you would normalize for that, the margin would have been higher than 39% that we previously had been guiding. Our margin performance is quite enabled by the cost efficiency program that we are running, which predominantly is within the network and IT space, as well as the channel costs as well.
Network and IT costs in 2022 were 39% of our total operating expenditure. In 2021, were 32% of operating expenditure, and the move year-on-year really is as a result of adopting Power as a Service, and hence the increase in OpEx. The point here is that network and IT operating expenditure is a lever for us to continue to explore and ensure that we are doing all we can to remain competitive in terms of the cost structure. How did we achieve the initiatives, or at least the savings that we've realized? We focused quite a bit in terms of the maintenance and support costs. We've engaged our suppliers and renegotiated key contracts with them. We've looked at network quality segmentation and implemented improvements there.
As well, in terms of power supply, we've implemented initiatives such as smart metering and modernization of cooling on our sites. We also have looked across the technology stack and platforms and retired legacy platforms and legacy technologies. In terms of channel and device costs, we have re-looked at the in-source versus outsource mix that we have in terms of running the business, digitizing a number of the journeys in which we support customers in order to reduce costs, as well as increasing the number of customers that are directed towards the online platform, which then helps us to save money as well.
Device management remains a live topic for us. We are supported by the group as well in ensuring that we are re-looking at the mix of the devices that we source, and ensure that we are optimal in terms of the device. We are seeing, in terms of margin, device margin, we've seen a bit of an improvement, quite an improvement, in the current year. Looking forward to the 2023 year, we have prioritized ZAR 500 million of savings. It will be anchored by cost efficiencies in the network and IT cost space, as well as continuing to improve customer self-service journey so that we can save costs there. We've also outsourced, as I said, some of the functions, and we'll continue with contract renegotiations as well.
With the increased investment in network resilience, there does come as well a cost increase in terms of OpEx. We are carefully managing that cost increase, carefully negotiating with our contract, with our suppliers, to ensure that we remain within optimal cost structure overall. Lastly, looking at our cash preservation initiatives. To give context, South Africa, over the past three years, have upstreamed about ZAR 20 billion towards the group, so quite a significant role that we are playing for the cash of the group. In terms of our priorities for the 2023 year, we are targeting ZAR 1.5 billion of cash release initiatives. This will largely come from receivables monetization. In the 2022 year, we were able to realize ZAR 1 billion from this work, so we'll continue and target the same level for this year.
We are implementing omni-channel collection strategies, really, to ensure that we are collecting as much as possible of our billing. We have also expanded our supply chain program to more than one platform, just to ensure that we're able to maximize on the payable cycle, and then, of course, working with the group in terms of device sourcing. The exposure for euro and dollar, as we are all concerned with regards to the devaluation of the rand, we are 45% exposed in terms of CapEx and 15% exposed in terms of devices. In terms of CapEx, the split between euro and dollar is really the same split between the 45%. We are continuing to look at our hedging strategies as well as mitigation strategies.
One of the key ones is to ensure that we are relooking at opportunities for changing the base currency through which we contract with our suppliers. Before I hand over back to Charles, really, ladies and gentlemen, the summary and the takeaway is that, as a management team, we are comfortable that we'll be able to attain, in the midterm, the service revenue levels of 4%- 6%, and that the EBITDA margins of 37% - 39% will be able to attain in the midterm, as well as support the cash, profile of upstreaming towards the group. I will now hand over back to Charles. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Dineo. In conclusion, we have, we've spoken quite a lot about the strategy, the initiatives that we need to execute. I think, ladies and gentlemen, all we're doing here is just to showcase the profile of the team that we have. I made a few call-outs on the work that Ramy has assisted us in terms of network. I spoke about the work that Antos Stella is doing in terms of layering, and changing the price portfolio for business and pricing up in the market and fighting off inflation. I covered a little bit around the channel expansion of our business to make sure that we expand the number of channels to be able to deliver the postpaid revenue.
Of course, you know, in the end, it's the quality of the team that executes the strategy that makes the whole plan credible. What is it, then, are we giving you as management? The entire MTN SA management is here today. What is the management giving to you as key takeaways? We are collectively saying to you that we'll continue to see opportunities for growth in SA despite the challenging macro challenges. Very clear about that. As a business, and as leadership, and as management, we remain positive on our growth prospects with our strong growth formula and a very strong level of execution. Very clear. Again, we said to you that our platform businesses continue to scale as we position ourselves as a key network of other networks.
The CFO has touched on our expense efficiency program that will continue to deliver significant savings for the business. As entire team of management of MTN SA, we're saying that we remain committed to deliver on our medium-term guidance. The CFO has covered it. Just to remind you on what the guidance is: service revenue growth, 4%-6%; EBITDA margin profile, 37%-39%; CapEx intensity, 15%-17%. With that, we say, we thank you, and we'll be happy to take questions from you. Thank you very much.
Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. Please join me for a brief Q&A. Charles, let me start with you. You talked about load shedding. We've been talking about load shedding. I just wanted you to please provide some color on this on these generators. I mean, how do they practically fit into the resilience plan, especially given how I know how network sites are set up in South Africa?
Yeah, look, I mean, it's a very important question you're asking. A lot of times we get questions to say, "You know, you have done this in Nigeria, how come you can't easily do it in South Africa?" We're quick to answer, to say, "Look, the Nigerian situation, of course, was from the beginning, so the network was built with that in mind." The SA network was built almost like a European network, because at the time, the access to power was different. What that meant is that in terms of real estate on the sites, to start with, was limited. It's almost a two-by-two kind of framework, in terms of real estate. We now have a situation where you have to self-provision on the site.
Self-provisions means a number of things. I spoke about batteries. Batteries need a shelter. Gensets also need a shelter. There's a challenge in terms of space. That's what makes the project challenging. In some areas, we're lucky. There's enough real estate, so we're deploying gensets. So we're able to do that. you know, in some areas, it's a constant negotiation to landlords. We have to expand the real estate to be able to do that. And what we think we'll achieve, you know, and what we're doing, I mean, the core or the hub sites, if you can call them, those ones, by default, must go on gensets. Then we look at the high revenue generating sites, also must go on gensets.
Eventually, you're looking at maybe, let's say, you know, one third of the total number of sites supposed to be on genset. That deployment, like I said, we are doing with multiple partners. We've got Huawei working with us. We've got ZTE working with us. We've got IHS, we've got ATC as well. It's a multipronged approach, and the deployment of the mix is based on the site.
Got you. Got you. Let's talk working capital, accountant to accountant. You talked a little bit about how you are managing the cash and the working capital. I'm interested in what the runway looks like for that, and are there any focus areas, especially given some of the challenges on the macro side?
Yeah. We do in our business tend to see that in the first half, that's where working capital is mostly utilized, but we do tend to recover in the second half. The focus area is really on the receivables because it's a topic of cash cycle. In the postpaid business, your cash cycle is longer in terms of recovering cash, whereas in the prepaid, it's a shorter cash cycle, 30 days. The reason why we monetize the book is to manage the cash cycle effect on the postpaid book. And that's really where we get most of the efficiencies.
Got you. Got you.
Mm-hmm.
Let me open to the floor. Yes, Ma'am. We're ready with the microphone. Go for it.
Hi, it's Louise from Investec. Maybe if you can touch a bit more on your CVM strategy, because I think you always seem to play catch up versus some of your other peer in the market. What informs your strategy? Can you basically provide more color on your AI and machine learning capabilities, and how that has progressed over time? On dynamic offers, I'm trying to assess how advanced your CVM capabilities are, where your geolocation intelligence can actually be linked to load shedding stages, and you can be able to, you know, push offers to customers in certain areas. Are you at that specific stages yet? Thank you.
Okay. Look, I mean, I think we, Louise, we're the first ones to admit that we, we are behind, I mean, in terms of where, where the market is. Let me first articulate what are the parameters of a CVM proposition. First of all, is a platform. You need to have a proper, robust platform. Like I said, you need to have the right skills. You need to make sure that it's cross-channel integrated, so it's available on multiple channels. You also need a proper shout-out in the market. I think if there's anything maybe that we maybe never really did very well, was that taking a proper posture in the market about where do customers find value. Positioning, tick, we've done that.
Made for You, we can see it all out in the market at ATL level, tick. Platform acquisition, Oracle, tick. Acquisition of skills, tick. You know, cross-channel integration, we're about 14 channels we want to expose this. Online channels, MyMTN app, MoMo app, distribution channels, all multiple preferable channels we want to expose this. I think we're sitting on about, let's say, about 4 - 5 channels today, where they're farming the proposition from one single central engine. We're working on AI and machine learning. We're about, I think there's about seven use cases that are now in test phase. On that, they use what we call, we call it NBX is next best thing, next best offer. We're using AI and machine learning to be able to generate insights to be able to showcase that.
I think we're making very significant progress, and I think for the very, very first time, we can make a very clear call-out that we have a very clear plan that we have executed. Once we get all the NBX or the AI, ML into play, I think we'll provide a proper, fully fledged platform that we've been trying to build for years.
Got you. Two-prong question from Cesar online, from Bank of America. The first part for you, CFO. He says: How long will it take to get back in line with the long-term service revenue guidance of 4%-6% and the 37%-39% margin?
Yeah. Yeah, I guess Cesar is asking on the back of the Q1 performance that we issued. We had communicated earlier in the year that we see that half one would be tougher, but we would see the recovery really in half two. By the end of the year, we should be within guidance. Half two is a period of recovery, supported by the resilience plan that Charles outlined. For full year, we will be within guidance.
Great stuff.
Maybe I need to.
Sure.
To add on that, I mean, we're very clear that, and I think the CFO is touching on it, that H1 will be under pressure, even Q2 still relatively under pressure, just to be very clear. We are sure that, I mean, if you look at H2, again, look at the base effects.
Yeah.
Because the level of deterioration in terms of load shedding kicked in quite aggressively in May last year. If you look at our average recharge daily rate, the decline happened, quite, you know, significantly in May last year. Coming into May, June, you start to have the upsides, purely based on base effects. Then when we enhance the availability, that the team is driving quite hard to be able to bring the network back up, you've got another upside. You've got the price ups as well, that are coming in, you know, removing all, not all, most of the free traffic, optimizing some of the social bundles. That's another upside. Just to explain the instruments, you know, of why are we confident, you know, to support what the CFO say.
Got you. Q2 is still a little bit difficult, but from there on out, it's a lot better. Yes, sir.
Thank you. Hello? Yeah. Hi, it's Mayur again from [Metal Industries]. You know, the network is absolutely key. I mean, I'm a telco engineer. It's absolutely key, right? You know, it's very encouraging to see the robust plans you have to make the network, you know, pardon the pun, robust to load shedding, right? Immune to load shedding, right?
Now, I'm sure you're sleeping and dreaming about batteries, Charles, when do you think the top 30 sites by, say, revenue, will be immune to load shedding from your point of view? You know, the 100% is not really the most important part. The top 30 sites, when will that be ready?
Yeah. Sounds like a, like a tricky question. I think. Look, let me say this. When we made the first decisions of investment on load shedding, all of us in this room practically assumed that stage four will be force majeure. Things moved quite a bit, you know, quite rapidly to stage four and stage six. What we then, as management, said is that, which was really quite bold and courageous, I have to say, that I think instead of maybe operating this thing with one partner, we wanna make a bold decision to say we go with multiple partners. Part of it that we'll insource and run it ourselves as MTN, something that we really never wanted to do.
That's why this was supposed to be an externally driven exercise. We've seen significant results. I mean, there's a way to result in Lenasia. We're coming to Joburg. We're open in eSwatini. We're going into the Western Cape and Central Province. Significant. I will say that, you know, give me H2, not for the 30% of the sites, but for significant network improvement, far beyond 30%.
Great. I want to wrap up with a question that's coming online from Victor Scott. It's a fintech question for you, Charles. With regards to the fintech, is the end state of the platform to be a super app, where it's like WeChat app in China, where the app encompasses various services, QR payment collections, loans, insurance, forex payments, ultimately perhaps transforming to a financial services app? Can you give us color on how this looks and how you plan to compete with VodaPay app or any other super app of the South African banks? App, app, super, super.
Yeah, I'm tempted to duck that question and wait for Serigne. I think Serigne will cover that a little bit more in detail in terms of the positioning. I think I understand there's a contrast in the market. People look at the VodaPay app, it's got a little bit more lifestyle and finance at the same time. While you look at our app is the MoMo app particularly is much more finance-centric. We also have the ayoba platform as well. I'll leave that for Serigne in terms of the strategic coherence of how we're approaching it.
In the South African environment, just a point of emphasis of what I said earlier on, is that there is a play for a proper fintech player for the low-base segment of the market. Andile, you know Soweto very well. You go on the street of Soweto, Khayelitsha, you go to Zandspruit and Diepsloot. Our people are trading on the pavements, and they're collecting cash. We think we can solve the problem.
Gotcha.
You know, yeah.
We'll put that question to the fintech team as well. Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for the South Africa team. We're trying to keep up on time. It's a long day. There's still a lot to get through. We are now gonna be having a 10-minute stretch break. Ladies and gentlemen, there's coffees and a little bit of eats that have been made available. You can make your exit at the top or at the bottom. I will see you at 11:42. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, please make your way back into the venue. We are about to start. Please grab your coffee and anything else and make your way back into the venue. We're about to kick off. Thank you!
I n front of you, and more importantly, there's a time in front of you. Ladies and gentlemen, please make your way back into the venue. We are about to start. Please make your way. Thank you very much. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna kick off with our second session as and when our colleagues are streaming in. Welcome back also to everybody that's joining us via the webcast platform. Like we did yesterday, we're gonna be covering the markets, except this time we don't have analysts and people from the, from the external world. We've got our team members and the executives that run those businesses.
You would have also heard, certainly earlier on when the Group President and CEO and the Group CFO on stage, they referenced a lot of these questions, and you must ask so and so, you must talk to so and so. This is the moment to do so, especially for the largest market that MTN has, which is Nigeria. That is our focus, between now and lunch, as you all know, from the very first call that was made in MTN Nigeria back in May 2001, the operation in Nigeria for MTN has grown to become the largest OpCo, both in terms of its contribution to group service revenue, which is about 40% contribution, and 45% contribution to the group EBITDA.
Well, we've already touched on Nigeria actually this morning with some of the news that has come hot off the press. You're now gonna get the opportunity to hear from the CEO and the CFO of the OpCo in Nigeria, who'll be taking us through a lot of the developments that are happening in-country. The MTN Nigeria CEO is Karl Toriola, and the Chief Financial Officer is Modupe Kadri. They're gonna be taking us through their plans and also their current performance. Before they get on stage, there is a video that we'd like to share with you on the operations of MTN Nigeria.
This is Nigeria, a nation bustling with potential, where opportunity and innovation converge. It gives us great pride to be a part of this dynamic narrative. Working with our partners and other stakeholders, we've spearheaded Nigeria's digital evolution, pioneering from 3G and 4G, to proudly being the first to introduce a 5G network in Nigeria in 2022. Our efforts have powered a 5G network that spans across all six geopolitical zones, with 588 active sites, offering unparalleled connectivity to millions, sparking growth and shaping futures. Our commitment to connectivity doesn't stop there. We've extended our broadband services to over 87.9% of Nigeria's population, sparking innovation and fostering digital inclusivity. In the dynamic fintech space, our user base is 14.9 million strong and growing, served by an expansive network of over 224,000 MoMo agents.
Working with partners that share our vision for a sustainable future, we've initiated Project Zero, employing the latest eco-friendly technologies to reach our ambitious net zero target. As a responsible corporate citizen, we've contributed over NGN 4.2 trillion in taxes, earning recognition from the Federal Inland Revenue Service as one of Nigeria's most compliant tax payers. Our investments go beyond technology. Through the MTN Foundation, in collaboration with local communities and public and private institutions, we have invested over NGN 25.7 billion into social priorities, empowering the youth, uplifting communities, and supporting national development goals. This is MTN Nigeria, a story of innovation, responsibility, shared progress, and prosperity. As we march towards our Ambition 2025 strategy, we invite you to join us on this journey of growth and success.
Good afternoon, everyone, or just morning. Before we get into the serious stuff, I got a bit of stick from the Ghanaian team yesterday about speed boats versus oil tankers. We're in the telecoms industry, and we measure speed by what? Network speed. We're on 5G. You saw 700 megs. Even Shalom, tell me what your speeds are. Now, unfortunately, I suspect that if this is relayed back to the Honorable Minister of for Finance, his wonderful wife is not going to rescind our invitation for some delicious Ghanaian dishes. You know what I like about Africa, and you always see this at the World Cup? I think Ghana knocked us, Nigeria, out of the World Cup at the last Qatar World Cup.
We have a lot of rivalry between ourselves, but the minute there's one or two or three African teams left, the whole of Africa gets behind those teams. That's exceptional about Africa. Anyway, onwards to serious stuff. The central bank has announced that the devaluation story was a rumor. It's still gonna happen, touch wood, hopefully, but the one that came out this morning was wrong. I'll get on to the presentation. We are the leading operator in Nigeria. We've continued to maintain our lead. Currently around 75.6 million subscribers as at 2022 ending. You'll see that we had a dip in our subscribers' numbers as a result of the NIN SIM registration, but we're fully behind that. It's a policy that we leant in towards.
We've continued to hold our market share somewhere around 51%, 50.8%, to be precise, and with significant technology investments. Our CapEx intensity ranging around 18%. We're keeping within the guidance that we've committed. As we see opportunities to accelerate our growth, we'll take those opportunities. You'll see, particularly in 2021 and 2022, as we saw to opportunities around accelerating data growth and the 5G investment, we went back for a bit more CapEx, but still stayed within the 18% range. Network sites up to 51,974. Our population coverage is around 92%, and with the recent addition of the NTEL spectrum lease, we're pushing our 4G coverage to somewhere around 82%.
Strong financial performance, we've taken our revenue from 2020 for about NGN 1.35 trillion to just over NGN 2 trillion for 2022. Very proud of our ayoba progress, 5.2 million subscribers, and we've had solid progress on homes connected. I'll speak to that a little bit further in the presentation at 1.2 million homes connected. The operating context, it's been a challenging macro. I think Bismarck Rewane gave a very well-balanced, balanced but optimistic view about the macro going forward and with rather tepid growth rates for what you expect from the giants of Africa. Nonetheless, we continue to push forward and grow pretty much ahead of inflation. I'll speak to that in a little bit.
The industry for 4G penetration is around 24%, and our smartphone penetration is at 54% at this period in time. Key macro highlights, pretty much replicating what Bismarck told us. Geopolitical and macro developments, COVID, Russia-Ukraine war, energy costs, inflation, have affected us. We've been affected by foreign exchange volatility and availability in U.S. dollars, but we've managed that very, very well. We actually accelerated our CapEx deployments in 2021 and 2022, and in most of them, the first half of the year. This year, a little slower. We've seen rising inflation and stabilization in GDP growth. Inflation at about 22% now, and monetary policy tightening with the MPR raised 500 basis points to 18.5%. We are very excited about the demographics of Nigeria. We have low data and smartphone penetration.
There's still a lot of runway to go. A huge population, growing at about 2.6%. Predominantly youthful population, very quick to adopt new technologies, whether in the digital, data or fintech space. There's limited, traditional banking footprint, and there's still 36% of the population unbanked. Nigeria is a lot more than Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, and if you could drive into the hinterland, you'll see that there's a lot of reliance on cash, as there is within the urban centers as well. We, we think that there's a big opportunity in that space, even now, even with the progress of the traditional banking industry in Nigeria. The GDP and the economic potential of Nigeria, I think even though we've rebased the economy, I think it's still underestimated, and that's because we don't see full transparency of the informal economy.
There's 40 million odd MSMEs in Nigeria that account for 46% of the GDP. We think that's a huge opportunity, both in the consumer and in the enterprise business as we address those. SIM registration requirements have given us a clear, unequivocal base for approved SIM registration with an NIN associated with it. The issues of the past are really in the past, and we are a strong strategic partner to both the NCC and the National Identity Management Commission in NIN registration. Key regulatory updates, the same NIN registration linkage policy, I think we're pretty solidly behind that now. We've been a key partner of NIMC. We've contributed in equipment towards building the infrastructure and capabilities, and I think that gives an unequivocal standard for KYC.
We've been a part of accelerating the registration, which is going to have a lot of social benefits across the country. We were the only existing operator, but one of the two bidders that won the spectrum auction in December 2021. We launched that in September. iPhones came on stream in December, and that's performing ahead of our projections. We're very satisfied with that. I'll speak to it a little bit later. National roaming, we think there's a big opportunity, not just for ourselves in terms of revenue generation potential, but also to support smaller players in the industry. With the MVNO licensing regime, we think there's also an opportunity in that space. The PSP license, after multiple years of waiting, we finally got that sometimes in April 2022.
We've launched, but in the last few months, we've focused on the governance structures, the control systems, and we're now ready to push and accelerate forward in terms of wallets acquisition. Most of that will be covered by Serigne Dioum and supported by Eli Hini, who's our MoMo PSB CEO. There's been a recent directive or approval given by the Ministry of Telecommunication to disconnect banks as a result of the USSD debt. Now, we have to do that in a responsible manner that doesn't disrupt the financial ecosystem in Nigeria. We're in, we're in engagements with the central bank and with the depository money banks to see how we address the debt, hopefully, and worst case, disconnect, but we'll do it in a responsible manner.
Compliance is non-negotiable, and I think, the stability that we've seen out of Nigeria, I think it was Lily who reminded me, earlier, that we haven't seen any material fines out of Nigeria in five years, is indicative of the strong governance structures that we've put in place and continued stakeholder relationship development, which we've put in place. Also gives us, the opportunity to steer policy, as much as we can. At least our voice is heard, and we're on the table in discussions and insight in some of the developments. We could reach out to the central bank this morning and say, "Has the currency been devalued?" "No, you'll hear from us soon enough," which is why I said, there will be this communication.
We've aligned activities with national priorities, we're supporting small operators as much as we can, we are promoting high impact projects. The one we committed to, and there were two actually, the head office, which we've acquired the land, we're going through the phases of design. We'll start construction, probably next year or so as we complete the whole design and tender process. The other one we're extremely proud of is the Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme. We've committed to the rehabilitation of Enugu-Onitsha Expressway, which is the most important artery in the east of Nigeria. We're going to make a bit of noise about that with the new administration, but there's actual physical work ongoing on site, we're going to collect our tax credits. We have repositioned successfully MTN Nigeria as the best partner for government.
The perception of a foreign extractive organization has pretty much disappeared in Nigeria. We're seen to be very much locally integrated, a key partner to all strategic stakeholders in the country. We continue to explore dispute resolution mechanisms that avoid large frontal conflicts. Looking at the market space, as I've mentioned, we're somewhere around 50.8%. We've pretty much held that position across the years. What we're, I think, particularly excited about is the evolution of our 4G market share, 4G data users. We've seen quite material growth over the last three years, approximately 4% in the 4G users in the market, as assessed by Facebook. How have we done this? We are number one in Net Promoter Score since 2020.
We've enhanced our network quality and speed, we have reasserted ourselves as the leading operator, particularly with the 5G and better customer experience. We continue to leverage our large distribution network, we are rolling out 4G and 5G aggressively and continuing with our rural deployment. We've just added, I think we had a sense release a few weeks ago, 500 MHz in the 900 spectrum, which we're using primarily for 3G. Also very interesting, it's a 10 MHz spectrum, FDD and 1,800 spectrum, from which we leased from ntel, which is one of the existing operators approved by the NCC, following the process, paying all the right fees. We've activated at a very fast speed. This is only in 19 states, by the way. We'd love it to be in Lagos and Abuja. It's not.
In those 19 states, there's a huge opportunity where we've been able to improve our network coverage and speeds and accelerate our 4G penetration with the use of that spectrum. Half of that we could do without any hardware upgrades. We've pretty much executed that. The remaining half is going to take another 30-60 days to implement, and that's going to give us another upside in that space. We're accelerating our home broadband penetration into the country using leveraging our 5G solutions and fiber to the home.
The primary source of the connection is for a 5G fixed wireless access. We're cherry-picking locations where we already have some existing fiber infrastructure, where it's easy to roll out, where it's secure, maintenance is less of a struggle, like gated estates, et cetera. We are quite successful in the homes and paths to homes connected ratios. We're looking at other partners who are willing to invest in the infrastructure and use our brand, our technology solutions to actually connect as much as possible on 5G. We're very excited about the successes of our 5G connectivity, and I think we're trending ahead of target there. Quick coverage on Ambition 2025.
In 2020, we had 1.4 million ayoba users, we're now at 5.2 million as at the end of 2022. MoMo users have grown from 4.7 million to 14.9 million MoMo users, but the majority of those are on OTC. Our focus is shifting clearly to the wallet business, and our active agents has also grown exponentially. In terms of driving industry connectivity, industry-leading connectivity solutions, we're accelerating our active data users now at 39.5 million from 32.6 million. We've more than doubled our home broadband users, and we continue to remain number one in NPS, customer NPS, and network NPS.
On our reputation index, talking about stakeholder management, our score for 2022 is actually ahead of our long-term targets, we're at 81%, and we've executed the localization of MTN Nigeria offer, spoken to our clear intention to go all the way to 11% or group shareholding down to 65%. When the economic conditions are right, and we can see a path to getting our cash out of the system there. We're proceeding with the structural separation of our fintech and fiber core businesses. This slide shows the compounded average growth rate of our revenue, which is 20%. Actually, if you take two steps back, and that's from 2019 to 2022.
2019 and 2020, our growth rate was in the mid-teens, and we accelerated that to the low 20% in 2021 and 2022. Voice revenue for 2022 was NGN 1 trillion, up 7%, and this is in spite of the challenges that we saw in NIN registration, which hit us and our voice quite significantly in quarter two. Quarter three, quarter four, going forward, we did push up our voice revenue in terms of growth, particularly using CVM and smart price up solutions, as we had a reversal of the headline tariff increasing. Data revenue, up 52%, closing in on voice revenue. Fintech up 34%. We think we're just at the beginning of that curve of growth.
Data revenue has clearly been a big driver of growth in the last few years. Fintech, with the push that we're going to do on mobile money PSP, is going to be the next curve of growth. Digital showing actually the strongest percentage growth at 69%. The numbers are still relatively small, but there's a huge opportunity in Nigeria, and we'll speak to one or two points there. Opportunities specific to Nigeria, which is probably the largest content creation market in Africa, and there's a great opportunity to be an aggregator and distributor of content in that space, not just for Nigerian content, but for all international content, working with our group digital teams who are working on deals with Netflix, Amazon, et cetera, et cetera.
Our enterprise business, 20% up. We think that's a strong growth. We're gaining value share in that space. Corporates are coming and turning to us more and more. We haven't spoken to our relative competitive performance. We've actually matched in percentage terms and actually slightly beating our competitors' growth in the last year or two. Off our very large base, that's significantly higher absolute naira growth. We're very proud as a management team of that acceleration of our relative performance. This shows just quickly the two growth curves data. We've always said that there's a sustained shift in the consumption patterns of data.
What I'd like to speak to is maybe the little box that talks about data usage per active user, which is at 6.8, approximately, GBs per user. Western norms is somewhere around 20 GBs per user, you have to keep in mind that Western norms actually also has a lot of offload of a mobile user towards Wi-Fi networks at home and in the offices. We think there's multiple avenues to grow this. One, we do have a high segment of high users, but there's a lower segment of a lot of customers that are still relatively low in terms of their usage, and they are going to grow exponentially over time. Two, we're going to capture the home and office consumption through our fixed broadband initiatives.
Three, there's still a lot of runway in terms of active data users, which we can still drive, and of course, handsets, 4G-capable handsets, and of course, the uplift we see from 5G. On the fixed broadband, home broadband usage, we're actually actively swapping out 4G home broadband users to 5G for multiple of reasons. One, it offloads our 4G network and reduces our CapEx requirements. Two, 5G is actually more efficient in terms of deployment, the cost of deployment of data, in those networks. Three, you actually see an uplift in consumption when you migrate a customer from 4G to 5G, so that drives our ARPU up. We've seen accelerating, and this is very much in the nascent stages, adoption of fintech services and transaction volumes.
Again, another exponential growth trajectory there, which we think we can drive even faster as we continue to focus on our MoMo PSB wallet space. How are we driving the sustained growth? Voice was really nice success story, 7% up in 2022. We did have an initial approval, and we executed it, lasted about a week and a half. initial approval for a headline tariff increase that was reversed for a multitude of reasons. In spite of reversing that, in spite of the NIN registration challenges, which really hits our voice revenue in Q2 2022, we managed to deliver 7% voice revenue growth using revamped voice propositions, working on our bonus structures.
CVM was a big lever of that, continued rural coverage expansion, while, of course, protecting our market share and ramping up our growth connections. Data revenue increase was sustained by natural consumption trends, CVM initiatives, positioning ourselves, and not just positioning ourselves, but delivering as the quality, as a network of choice, network of quality in the country, expanded, accelerated, expanded 4G and 5G coverage. On the home, we've increased our fiber to the home deployment in key select clusters. We've accelerated our 5G home broadband connections, we're very pleased with that. We have 100 MHz of spectrum, we're focusing the deployment of our 5G network, driven on two things. One, the presence of handsets. Samsung handsets are yet to come onto stream. That's imminent in a few weeks.
Once we get the Samsung handset software deployed, we'll see a bump up in the consumption of 5G traffic. The 4G Sorry, the iPhone handsets are online, and they're delivering solidly on that. We select our 5G coverage on the basis of consumption demand for home broadband solutions, what we see from fixed broadband. When we see users that have very high usage on 4G on our, on the fixed wireless access consumption, we upgrade them to 5G at a subsidized cost, and we see the consequent uplift. Then we pick select locations like universities and tech hubs, et cetera, et cetera, and we put 5G in that space. We've launched a few quad play solutions together with Showmax, Amazon Prime, et cetera, Apple Music as well.
We continue to lead in customer experience on our reward program retention. In fintech, I'm not going to cover that to a great extent, but I'll be happy to join any question and answer sessions. Serigne and Eli Hini are going to cover that. Our focus is now on growing wallets and the merchant ecosystem. Starting pretty much from the month of June onwards, we're on a large campaign to really create and generate awareness and excitement around the PSB solution. As we expand our wallet base, we'll be building on advanced services across our fintech verticals. Digital is focusing on gaming, OTT video, digital advertising, a lot of music and video, opportunities to collaborate with the right partners to address the challenges of Nigeria on the health and education space.
On the enterprise space, we co-create customer-centric specific solutions. We enable digital transformation across verticals for all of our customers, and we're focusing a lot on the SME space. Navigating our challenging macro environment, I'm sure all of you would have seen the results for Q1 2023, 21.6% revenue growth, and which you'd probably say is slightly below the inflation rates of today. We were hit in Q1 2023 by a cash crunch, and it hits all the businesses in Nigeria quite significantly. We're one of the very few businesses in telco, and I have a slight dispute with Bismarck around that, we're one of very few businesses in Nigeria that actually saw significant growth.
A lot of the food companies actually saw, in the peak of the cash crisis, a decline in revenue of around 30%-40%, and we saw growth through this quarter of 21.6%. We think, within limits, we're a very, very resilient business, which takes a priority of spend. We think that through continuous optimization of our pricing to address the challenges, and hopefully we're looking at tariff increases, I'll speak to that in a bit, and ramp product offerings, I think we'll be able to protect our revenue base quite robustly.
Supply chain management, we have always traditionally committed our CapEx upfront as early as possible and secured the dollars for our CapEx expansion program at the rate currently available to avoid any increase in the effective naira rate as a result of devaluation. We use trade lines for letters of credit, we have redenominated as much of our foreign currency contracts to local currency as possible. On the network space, we have well-structured telco agreements, which mitigate rising energy costs. Majority of them are under the IHS contract that have a significant portion of dollars, they do have a naira component as well, the rest are pretty much naira contracts with an energy pass-through pricing. We think that on balance, we have a good structure there.
We've always said consistently that 10% devaluation in the currency will approximately impact us at a 1%-1.3% EBITDA margin. That's a straight line analysis. We've continued to look for efficiencies through our EEP 2.0 to get more out of it, out of our of the system, that's one. We will be looking, I think there's been a consensus across the stakeholders, that this industry is well overdue for a price increase. It's been a question of the timing, I think with the imminent currency devaluation, the removal of the subsidies, potential final implementation of an excise duty, we're optimistic that we'll be able to get that through. We've have a very well-structured funding and liquidity profile.
Modupe will speak to that in a bit, so I don't want to dwell on that extensively. To understand our tower contracts and energy and power contracts, 50%, 50%-55% of our tower contracts are indexed to the USD NAFEX rate. The exchange rate is adjusted at the start of each quarter. As I mentioned, 10% devaluation in the naira results to a straight line 1.3% impact on margins. We optimize that. There's 80% of tower contracts do not have an energy pass-through, so if the energy prices spike or decline, it doesn't impact those contracts, but 20% do have an energy pass-through. The tower contracts have a U.S. dollar and naira CPI escalation.
It's not one-for-one, it's a portion of the CPI impact, but that's applied annually, based on the prior December year's rate. Our 5G network progress and opportunity, we're very excited about this. And there's been people who have thought that 4G wasn't for Africa. I think that's been well proven wrong. Likewise for 5G, we're at the forefront of this, and we think this is really going to be successful. We acquired 100 MHz, that is material spectrum, of 5G, of 5G spectrum in the 3.5 gig and space. We acquired the spectrum that had the highest handset penetration, marginally, better coverage, and we commercially launched. We've rolled out 788 5G sites, as of end of Q1, but we're ± going to triple that in the course of this year.
We think there are great opportunities in the lower band spectrum for dynamic spectrum sharing to actually accelerate our coverage, particularly in building solution over the course of this year. We're very excited about that. Our intention is to reach a 10% coverage by 2023, With the utilization of the lower bands of spectrum, we think there's actually an opportunity to actually improve that even further. Our traffic is ahead of projections based on iPhone users and the home broadband solutions, and we will continue to accelerate this as we swap out 4G devices for home broadband to 5G, as I said, to relieve congestion on our 4G network where it exists, and to improve our ASCU in that space.
I'll hand over to Modupe to take us through the financial and capital allocation framework. Thanks.
We'll talk about the financial and capital allocation framework. The framework is not new, as it's been shared previously by Tsholo, Dineo. I will talk about from a Nigerian perspective in terms of what we're trying to do and how we are ultimately trying to ensure that, you know, we generate free cash flows. The three pillars, the service revenue growth, Karl talked about that. We're targeting at least 20% service revenue growth. You do recall that, sometime, two years ago, we did up the market guidance to at least 20%, so we're still committed to that. Of course, it's always a balance to try to maintain ahead of inflation.
The average inflation in Nigeria last year was about 10.8%, so delivering above that, you see in the next charts, how we've fared in that regard. How do we do this? You know, Karl just mentioned about accelerating our mobile plans to scale the platforms. We're going to talk about that, and earlier, and Serigne will also unpack that from a Nigerian perspective. Of course, voice is not going away. That's the surprise that we see, and of course, we'll always try to maximize and ensure that we monetize those opportunities in our markets. That also takes us to the margin expansion story. Despite the strong headwinds, we've been able to expand our margins. How we've been able to accomplish that?
Tsholo talked about DCB 1.0, 1.9, 2.0, and I think you've seen Nigeria's contribution to the Group program in that regard. We're going to operate, leverage on our size. We're going to maintain a relentless focus on our expense efficiencies. That is, to look for areas where we'll continue to expand our margins, and I think we're making some progress in that. Actually, that's one of the reasons when you look at last year's results, you'll find that the OpEx was somewhat under control, notwithstanding the strong headwinds that we experienced. Of course, we'll continue to accelerate our digitalization program. Now, in terms of value-based capital allocation, that remains our top objective.
We are committed to reduce our CapEx intensity to sub 18 levels, 18 or sub 18 levels. Having said that, as we do mention on the course of over the periods, if there are opportunities where we have to monetize, we would have to explore that in terms of growth of the market size. So far, we've kept within the CapEx envelopes that we have. We're gonna scale our advantage, network and IT optimization continue, some deployments of the cloud, and to reduce dependence on, you know, infrastructure on the ground. Of course, we are going to remain disciplined in our capital authorization.
You've seen, when you looked at the growth in data over the past two years, you've seen that we've consciously allocated to growth areas in the 4G space, to capitalize on the data opportunities, and we're doing the same on the 5G space. That's why you've seen that we're monetizing that asset. All this, of course, will lead to attractive free cash flows. Our cash flows are well managed. I think we also have our working capital efficiency programs, which Dina and Shola also mentioned, and that all flows through the bottom line. In terms of our capital allocation priorities, it still remains 4G coverage, 5G coverage, which also dovetails into Ambition 2025. It's all about data. Voice will remain there, but it's more focused on data.
Capacity upgrades where possible, so we're gonna see modernization of the network and ensuring that it's robust enough to carry the traffic, that's in the market at the moment. In terms of dividends to shareholders, we have a dividend payout policy that says that we'll pay up to 80% of retained earnings. That we've been committed, and over the past two years, it's actually at 87%. Tsholo did not mention, but I would mention that we substreamed over $1 billion over the past two years. She conveniently missed that.
We did do $1 billion, at least, about $530 million-$580 million for the past few years, and we've done a bit this year, but because we've not released anything to the market, I can't be talking about that at the moment. In terms of investment, earlier on, and Serigne Dioum are going to come on stage, also talk about the fintech space, so I'll leave that. We're gonna scale ayoba, actually scaling that, trying to leverage on that. Of course, the enterprise business actually have a dedicated program on that, trying to monetize the opportunities in that space, and it's actually doing well in the contribution to the service revenues that we've seen.
In terms of our capital structure, like Shola actually mentioned, exposure in terms of foreign debt is about 10%. Most of it is local debts of 90%. Of that 90%, 46% is fixed and 54% is floating. Some of the questions that we anticipate, okay, we did a scrip program. What are you going to do with the cash? Ultimately, we're going to see how we're gonna take out some of those floating instruments to reduce the finance cost. Of course, if you listen to what Bismarck said yesterday, the cost of capital is going to rise, at least given the current macroeconomic conditions.
It actually makes sense to see if we can take that and have some more cash, free cash, free cash flows to pay out. In terms of the financial highlights, specifically, we've seen the evolution of our service revenue growth from 14.7%, like Karl said, mid-teens. Now we're actually seeing 21.5%. The key challenge is how we're going to sustain that. One of the things we're looking at is to, you know, get that tariff increase in place. To also cushion the effects of the operating costs that we're seeing. We're pleased with the growth. It's a healthy contribution.
In terms of EBITDA and EBITDA margins, the guidance we gave as part of our Ambition 2025 is 53%-55%, and we're still in the 53% ranges. We still are committed to that despite the headwinds, and we're pleased with the trajectory. If that is going to change for any reason, then of course we'll come to the market at the appropriate time. For now, that's where we are. The Q1 results released to the market is also in that space. In terms of our profit after tax, in Nigeria, annually, we have the finance bill where the government usually tweaks. Today, the effective tax rate is almost trending to almost 35%.
Even though, you know, year-on-year, you actually have to normalize the ETR, the effective tax rates, in that year to compare, to look at the evolution of the profit after tax. That's why, in 2021, we saw the leap for the 5.5%, but subsequent to that, the effective tax rate has gone up by almost 2 percentage points, which will affect the profit after tax. Of course, if we grow the top lines as we are committed to doing and maintaining our cost profiles, then of course, that should also flow through. In terms of our free cash flows, we're also seeing healthy growth in terms of year-on-year evolution, and that's also in line with our disciplined approach to ensuring that we'll continue to unlock value in where we are placing our investments.
With that, I'd like to hand back to Karl, who will talk about the conclusion and the highlights.
The one thing that Modupe did not speak to, which was really a masterstroke by himself and the treasury team, is how we went to the market and really got long-term funding through bonds as well as commercial papers short-term, at rates that are slightly incredible. Looks like sorcery. Actually below the bank CBN rate. That has given us a very well-structured long-term funding. And then we'll migrate the rest of the free floating instruments. Great job by the finance and treasury team there. Looking forward. Okay, this is the right one. I think what's probably a bit special about MTN Nigeria is our ability to execute, and that's thanks to these people here. A lot of them are old faces.
Modupe, who used to be in Ghana, still the Chairman of Mobile Money in Ghana. A few new faces I'd like to call out. A'isha Mumuni is our Chief Digital Officer, appointed a few months ago to drive the digital space. We went and stole the head of Mobile Money from Ghana, Eli Hini. Okay? We're part of the capital or human capital flight program out of Ghana. We really were looking for the best, most experienced pair of hands that has seen this journey from bottom up and has done it at scale. We're very pleased to have Eli as part of our team. Onyinye has been doing an amazing job in fixed broadband. Also relatively newly appointed.
Actually, talent identified by Mazen when he was COO. I sent him a message saying, "Absolutely amazing choice." Shina is our Chief Sales and Distribution Officer. I think by July onwards, you'll really start to see the impact of the transformation of that function. It's been comparatively probably our slight Achilles tendon compared to the competition, but I think we're getting well ahead of that. Hassan, of course, who is now old, because he's been with us by, like, a year and three months, comes from the most advanced digital market that's associated. I have to take my words, we have a minority shareholding in MTN Group, which is MTN Irancell, brings a wealth of experience there. It's really an amazing team, which we're extremely proud of.
Looking forward, what are we looking at? We will capture the sustained growth opportunities presented by structurally higher demand for data. We'll ramp up our growth connections. We will accelerate our 4G penetration quality and 5G, while at the same time pursuing aggressively, and we think the time is right, a headline tariff increase. We'll continue to drive our home broadband strategy to capture a significant share of the market growth. Not just the growth, but to ensure that when the migration from the mobile devices to home and offices broadband happens, we are the ones there to serve those, that space. We're going to accelerate our platform play with one big primary focus, and we're going to do it aggressive, and we're going to do it at scale. And that's fintech at this point in time, but digital is just as important.
The acceleration, the contribution to revenue, we think, is huge. 36% of the population unserved. The rural areas, you have to drive kilometers and kilometers to get cash. I think that's a huge opportunity, and we've got the right team. We'll continue to focus rigorously on our expense efficiencies. I think you've seen the EBITDA margin evolution, in spite of inflationary pressures, has shown that we have strict discipline on expense efficiency, and we'll continue with discipline on capital allocation. We'll execute our Ambition 2025 strategy and deliver in line with our medium-term guidance and driven by management team. Just a closing slide, just to show what the medium-term guidance is. Service revenue, at least 20%. EBITDA margins, 53%-55%. Reducing CapEx intensity of 18%. Dividend payout of 80% of distributable income.
That's it. Thank you.
Thank you once again, gentlemen. Please have a seat, and let's field some questions. Karl, let me start with you on the competitive environment that is Nigeria, especially when it comes to data. It's been quite robust in that market, from what I can tell. What is MTN Nigeria's advantage in this space, and what gives you the confidence that you'll continue to lead on the data side?
The advantage is customer experience. That's the first point, and customers go to their wallets pretty quick. We've driven our data acceleration by investing significantly in 4G coverage expansion. Through spectrum acquisitions, we had an 800 MHz spectrum acquisition, which we completed approximately two years ago. We've just completed the ntel spectrum lease in 19 states. That allows us to expand quite aggressively. We are not only perceived, but we, in reality, we are the leading operator in the technology space. Customer experience, transparent billing, competitive value propositions in the market, and a great customer service, at least within the context of our market, and a recognition of the contribution and the privilege we have to help serve these customers.
We're building a great brand that's deeply planted in Nigerian cultural identity.
Cool. Modupe, we've been talking about Forex in a couple of contexts, right? Mostly about the whole issue of upstreaming and repatriating funds, et cetera. The other thing you've got to deal with is the fact that some of your OpEx and CapEx, particularly, are not in naira. How do you manage that?
Two things: Where possible, we leverage on our balance sheet, so some of those contracts, we prepay them, you know, in terms of the rates ruling at the time. That helps gives us some leverage. Of course, where possible, you know.
80% of the cost basically are more like, although they are denominated and have a foreign currency base, but actually paid in. It's not as if it's an FX, but you convert it at the rates ruling at the contract date, basically. It's not really, you know, you're looking forward for that quantum of Forex. However, the real question probably on what we'll probably do with CapEx, that's where you actually need the real dollars. Of course, we have to leverage on our trade lines and, where possible, get some foreign currency denominated loans, and of course, use the letters of credits that the CBN, the Central Bank, has in place. That's how we backfill those things.
Got you. Yes, sir, right at the back.
Hi, Niel from Absa. I'm interested in your relationship with your tower operators. How can I put this? I mean, it's a pretty much a catch-22. We all know the IHS share price is under pressure. I think part of the reason there is the relationship with its partners in Nigeria. What is the risk here that the lease or these lease amendments or renegotiations that are less telco-friendly? Thank you.
We, the Nigerian team, look at this from a Nigerian lens only. That is management, and that's the board. We'll make the decisions that have the best outcome for Nigeria in terms of our margins. Group will deal with the share price issues on their own. We have to do that for governance, for equal protection of all shareholders, and that's what we're doing. We're going through an exercise on the 2024 portfolio to ensure that we get competitive, best available rates in the market, and to the best extent as possible, protect the margins of Nigeria. Ralph will explain away whatever impact that might have on IHS. We really do take that very seriously.
We have a very strong, independent board of directors, key senior independent directors, that apply themselves very robustly to these decisions with the hats of the fiduciary obligations of MTN Nigeria.
I mean, I think Karl answered correctly there. I mean, the issues about our holding is not Karl's problem, and it should never be, because I think you've got to make the right decision, you know, for the business. Neil, I would characterize your question and maybe make a slight adjustment to it. I think what is affecting the share price is the fact that 70% of the earnings of IHS are in Nigeria, and people are not taking a view is we have a official rate here. We understand what IHS upstreams cash at and MTN, and there's a parallel market rate, so the spread is too wide for, I think, some investors to take an informed view of. I think that's actually the material thing.
IHS understands that when they are negotiating with an OpCo, the OpCo has to have the lens to make the decision that is absolutely arm's length for that. You know, there's a bit of a tension there, but it's the right sort of tension to get the best kind of outcomes. I wouldn't say it's the relationship. The 2024 portfolio naturally is coming, the 2029 portfolio will come, and the same dynamics will happen. Karl is absolutely right. That's not his problem. That's myself, Tsholo, Kholekile, a few others, and he has to do what's in the best interest, actually, for the OpCo.
Perfect. Yes, sir, at the back. I'll come back to you, sir.
Vik from RMB Morgan Stanley. Yeah, you've talked about the price increase, that, you know, there is a timing to it, and eventually it'll happen. What about, I think, on the tax situation? Apparently, the previous or, I mean, it's still the Finance Minister kind of signed an excise that was supposed to happen on the telecommunications. Where are we on that? You know, have you gotten any kind of information in terms of how it will be implemented, and can you pass it on to the consumers or not?
It was a slightly confusing period, and to exacerbate that, there was a handover of administration shortly after all of this was put in place. The excise duty was apparently within the law, signed into law. What we're told, and there was actually a posting on the Ministry of Telecommunications website, was that telco was excluded. We're still not 100% clear on that. The agency that actually is responsible for the collections of excise duty is the customs, and they have to document the framework under which this is going to be implemented, and it's going to be 5% if or when it's implemented, and the entire position of the harmonized position of the government needs to be clear.
We're going to be prepared for it, but we think that's one of the strong justifications. In addition to further investment, inflation, profitability of the industry, sustainability of the players, that are a lot smaller than us, to have a tariff increase of more than the 5% excise duty. We're lobbying for that. We've been lobbying for that for ages. We think, the circumstances are pretty much right now to follow through on that, and we're optimistic that we'll get that, sooner than later.
If I may add, part of his question was, you know, if when it does come to play, it's going to be passed on to the consumers.
Yes, sir.
Thanks. Mayur from [Mirpa]. A question on your home broadband strategy. Maybe actually it's more about the market structure. Is this area just for the mobile operators, or is there people outside the space who are competing head-on with you? What's their point of differentiation in terms of their offering to the consumer?
It's a vibrant space. There are fiber to the X players, people like ipNX, Fiber One, et cetera, Swift as well. There are also people that are deploying wireless solutions. It's a vibrant space. Our unique point of sale, first of all, is our expansive coverage and leading technology. Recharge and distribution is clear, and we have a brand that's associated with quality in the context of the space. We don't take anything for granted. The advantage of fiber can be stability if you don't have frequent fiber cuts, it depends on the nature of your infrastructure, and effectively a limitless pipe. That's why we are also playing in that fiber space, but doing so in a smart way where we can have returns.
Right-of-way costs are very expensive in Nigeria, and the cost of maintenance is also quite significant in Nigeria because of repeated fiber costs and infrastructure challenges. Where the opportunity provides, where there are pockets of locations where we can have a high ratio of home passed to homes connected, and already some infrastructure taking towards our base station, then we get into those opportunities. We're seeing good progress in that space, and we'll continue to pursue them aggressively. We do have limited capital, so we always put our capital where we get the highest returns first, but we'll capture any opportunities that we can beyond that.
Fixed wireless access, 5G, is the main driver, and we'll capture on a select basis, the fiber space while looking at others with whom, we can wipe people that will use their capital to put the infrastructure down, and we can take the upside of working with our brand, our billing system, et cetera.
Final question from Cesar, from Bank of America, asked here on the webcast: You seem very confident in the price increases in Nigeria in H2. Is it based on conversations you've had so far with authorities, or do you think the telco regulator will change post the new government?
We need to appreciate one thing. A lot of the leadership in government agencies are tenured positions, okay? If the tenure goes on to 2025, 2026, except the leadership of those agencies decide to resign or something else happen, they'll be there for some time. The economy of Nigeria, hopefully, with the new leadership, shows indications that it's going to change, that there's an understanding of the pressures that businesses are under. The first few steps of the first few days have demonstrated that there appears to be a will to make a change. The truth is, even the previous administration, there was a wide acceptance that this industry was well overdue for a tariff increase. Unfortunately, it's regulated, we need formal approval for that.
Perhaps it was not the best time politically, when you head into an election, to make some of those decisions. I think there's a wide understanding from probably the most important stakeholders around the economic planning and inside the regulator itself, that this is necessary. That's why we actually got an approval for a 10% increase, which was subsequently reversed. It's hard to put a finger on it and say, "This is when it's going to happen." I think we've read quite well, the sense of where policymakers are going, and we think we're optimistic, sometimes in H2, we'll get this.
Karl, Modupe, let me thank you for your time. A round of applause for the team from Nigeria. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for that. That was very interesting from the biggest market in the MTN Group. Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, MTN's geographic footprint is wide, stretches over 19 markets, as I'm sure you've heard. We've already heard from the leadership of the two biggest one, being South Africa and Nigeria. While there's 17 other markets, and they are arranged into a cluster that's led by Mr. Ebenezer Asante, who is the Senior Vice President for Markets. He's going to be taking us through the presentation, giving the overview of these 17 markets that are split into regions. There's a Southern and East Africa region known as SEA.
There is a West and Central Africa region known as WCA, and there's a Middle East and North Africa region known as MENA. He'll be doing a presentation, and then later on, he'll be joined by the VP for SEA, Yolanda Cuba, and also the VP for MENA, Mr. Ismail Jaroudi, who'll be joining us online. I'd like to now call on Mr. Ebenezer.
Karl, I will resist the temptation of responding to your speedboat analogy, except to say that when I meet Minister Ken, I will tell him he was present in the room today. Greetings from markets. Earlier on, Ralph talked about the case for markets.
I've talked about the case for markets, I will not go into the details, except to say that what market brings to the party is, first, growth, second, opportunities, third, how we take the platforms, into the space, and realizing that also there are challenges to manage. Very complex, dynamic environment we operate within, how we also manage the nation-states, both as a challenge and also the opportunities we see there. In brief, if you forget all, just remember that if God is in detail, growth is in markets. Markets overview, overall, 175 million subscribers, and maybe you should take it a notch higher. We have huge population across all markets, growing around 3% year-on-year, and our, subscriber growth rate is about twice, two and a half times that of the population growth rate.
That is the first thing you need to take into account. Then the penetration into the base for data, for mobile, financial services, as well as digital, you realize that they are all way lower than the overall base. Again, vertically and depth, it's also giving an indication of the growth and the opportunity prospects. When you look at it, horizontally in terms of the monetization of the base, based on the opportunities that we also see, today, revenue contribution is 37% of Group, whereas subscriber contribution is 61% of Group. It also gives you a gauge of the opportunity in there. Even if you remove the Iran numbers, you're still looking at 44%-45% of the Group base.
In terms of the EBITDA margin as well as the EBITDA contribution, 34%, capital intensity, also, we are within guidance. The profile and positioning of markets is one of leadership. Across all the 17 markets, number one or number two. We also lead in the space of customers in terms of experience, we lead in technology, we lead in financial performance, just as we also lead in the area of subscriber base. It is one of leadership, it's one of positioning, and it's one of market intensity. Life is tougher out there, and it's even tougher in the markets. We have leadership, both at the regional level and also in the OpCos, who are able to manage these complexities.
Very elastic, very resilient, very dynamic, diversified in all aspects, very, very strong, and they are able to manage, mint the opportunities that we see, and also knit that with the nation-states. The nation-states management and ensuring that even as we grow, the growth is sustainable and is also not disturbed by the politics in the space, is highly managed. We have Yolanda in charge of SEA, Ismail, who will also be joining virtually, in charge of MENA. For the CEOs, quite a broad range. We have Selorm in the room. The others, I'm sure they are joining virtually. We are happy and very proud of the recent appointments.
Mapula coming on board, as well as Sylvia also joining two of our key markets in Cameroon and Uganda. We are very excited about the diversity that we are seeing there, and it's only an encouragement to do more into the future. The operating context for geopolitical and social environment, a lot has been said by Karl and Charles and their team, so I'm not going to repeat some of the points. Suffice to say that even though we see some security and social spots in some markets, broadly speaking, the operating environment is relatively stable.
We are also comfortable in the fact that even though six of the markets in the next two years will be going through elections, we expect the outcome to be positive, and we also expect the political environment to be healthy even into the future. In terms of macroeconomics, how it impacts on us and how we manage it, again, I'm not going to repeat. A lot has been mentioned around inflation and inflationary pricing. A lot has been mentioned around volatility in forex, particularly for the Francophone for the Anglophone market. For Francophone, which is a part of our portfolio, we don't have much issues with pricing and forex volatility because of the euro-pegged currencies that we have.
Even for Anglophone markets, we take care of these pressures through inflationary pricing, and at the same time, managing the supply chain in a way to minimize the CapEx as well as OpEx impact as a result of the macros. Regulatory environment, I touched on the leadership team. Very powerful, very strong, very dynamic, working constantly to ensure that we also manage the risks within the environment. Let me pick on SIM registration, a trend that you are seeing across most of the markets. In the short to medium term, it may appear as some noise. It may be a challenge, but if you take your gaze into the long term, it's actually an opportunity.
Opportunity in the sense that with the enhanced KYC and the biometric data that is being captured, we'll be able to do our fintech business a bit more robustly because some of the fraud issues that may be in the space will be very well contained. The digital solutions, that also requires some enhanced KYC even as we grow into the future, will be taken care of. In terms of competition, it's a very, very intensive competitive space that we operate within. The dynamics in the Francophone is a little different from that of the Anglophone. Because of our strength in the market space, in terms of the leadership that I talked about, we are able to also raise the ante in terms of where we compete.
We compete in service, we compete in network, and we also compete in delivering and growing new spaces in order to add a layer. If you take a market like Ghana, and you take a market like Eswatini, where we are very, very strong in all the parameters, in all the portfolio areas, how do we grow? We can only grow through new areas, new services, new categories, that we are able to make a difference. Once we do that, we are also able to leave some space for others so that the SMP risk does not become too pronounced. For this slide, I'm not going to dwell on CVM. We've talked about it in terms of how we use it to manage pricing and also protect our growth.
The bit that I just want to highlight, and I have the opportunity of going into all the markets from time to time, and it is better experienced than be told. The team on the ground understand their game. They know where to mint and where to get growth from. Market intensity within the portfolio, voice, data, fintech, platform, and even in recent times, home, is a clear area of difference between us and our peers. Beyond that, we also understand how to knit the opportunities and the growth to the nation state issues. With that, we are also able to even protect ourselves as we grow. That is a bit on commercial, and once we do that, managing the supply chain and the cost associated, ensure network leadership, the financial resilience is only an outcome.
For this slide, what I just need you to please focus on is the trajectory. You look at what we've done in 2020, 2022, you can just do your own projection into 2025. ayoba, MoMo, in terms of subscribers and how we are projecting for the leading connectivity side, in terms of data users and the number one NPS game, and how we are projecting. When you go to 2022, the number that you are seeing for home broadband, as I indicated, in terms of the opportunity, it also gives you an idea of where we are heading towards 2025. The game into the future, strongly placed, would also be on home broadband, just as was mentioned by previous presenters.
Creating a shareholder, the shared value for our stakeholders, reputational index, very important, moving from 75% to 78%, making sure that the ecosystem also feel part of MTN in itself. The portfolio side, significant progress made in terms of fintech separation. We've done the first layer. We are into the next phase, and I'm sure when Serigne comes, he would also tell you a bit about what we are doing for the final phase. We are making very good progress, and we are excited about it. This just gives you the competitive and stakeholder positioning in the market. What we want to do under connectivity, under the platform play, fintech, and then also the nation state.
Just a bit on the nation state, overall, at the end of the day, we see a big opportunity in the digital economy that all the countries, all the finance ministers, all the sector ministers are talking about. That opportunity is what we engage them around. The challenge and the issues should not always be around taxation, because we are also able to show them, even if you want more tax, there is a way we can collaborate for you to also get more from the bigger economy. Working with them on digital economic drive, whilst we are also even using it to drive our business, is a key area for the nation state and ESG leadership. With this few words, let me invite Yolanda to join me here, and then Ismail will also join virtually. Thank you.
Thank you, Eben. Oh, yes, you leave that behind there. Thank you for joining us, Yolanda. Let's just make sure Ismail is online. While we're waiting for him to come online, we're gonna start our chat here. He is there. Hello, Ismail.
Hi, hi. How are you doing?
Very good. Very good. Thank you for joining us. Where are you, by the way? Exactly.
Thanks a lot. Let me start by just apologizing for not being in the room with you guys. I think Ralphie alluded earlier that we are trying to do an orderly exit from Afghanistan. I thought that I would stay close to that transaction and make sure that Ewe are delivering on time.
Lovely stuff. Lovely stuff. Ismail, I'm gonna come to you in a moment. Yolanda, thanks for joining us, but maybe let me just pick up, Eben, one of the things you referred to, was fintech in your region. Market as a kind of a cluster, but WECA, in particular, seemingly has been doing very well when it comes to driving fintech and other platforms. What has been the case for success, especially WECA?
The case for success across markets and in particular, WECA, four things. First is how we drive the base. I touched on the market intensity, how we acquire customers, based on the distribution and meta network. The third is the advanced services that we are driving beyond the P2P. Remittance is big, bank tech is another, and the new area of Insurtech is also another area. We also position fintech also as a go-to platform. We use fintech itself to drive the core connectivity business. Those are some of the things we do to ensure success for fintech across Weca.
Great stuff, Eben. Yolanda, let's go to your SEA region. It's once again, delivered a strong performance over the period from the year 2020, double-digit growth recently in service revenue. Could you just provide us an overview of the performance of your segment?
Yeah. Thanks, Andile. I mean, from SEA region, really solid performance, as you said. I mean, we've seen, like, between 2020 and now, 16% CAGR in terms of service revenue, and that actually on the back of actually data accelerating and growing at 28% CAGR. If you look at our fintech, also growing at about 27%. What was surprising, as was mentioned earlier, is the voice robustness in the mix, actually still coming in at 7%. Sorry. If you look at our overall kind of performance, really solid performance.
If you look at sort of the market intensity that the SBP spoke to, we grew our subs by about 3.5%, to about 35 million subs in the period, as well as making sure that we're actually driving very hard our fintech users at 20 million. If you look at, 20 million versus the 35 million, you're seeing there's somewhere around 56%-57% penetration in our base, actually of fintech. Then when you look at data, which is where we're really more challenged, is we're only looking at 30 million subs. Although we've seen great growth, however, there's still a lot of work to be done there.
Indeed, indeed. Once again, great opportunity on the continent. Ismail, let me bring you in here. In the MENA region, I've seen a lot of talk around some new revenue streams, and that those could potentially be good lessons, I guess, for the rest of the group. I remember reading about the Snap app and how it's grown in that region. Just unpack that a little bit, some of the, call it, newer revenue streams that you guys are leading in your region?
Thank you very much. I think this is a very important area maybe to shed light on. As you know, we have some financial investments and couple of those platforms, and Snap, and Iran, and Middle East Internet Holding and the rest of the Gulf countries. Those platforms, basically, they are, they span over 12 different services from ride-hailing, the likes of, you know, the Ubers of the world, up until to healthcare, food delivery, et cetera. I think we have been seeing a very healthy and proper growth in the past seven years. I mean, and Snap, as an example, they reached close to 4 million rides a day.
They reached close to 300,000 food delivery a day on the super app. We have around 6 million active daily user and a total of 50 million active subscribers. Of course, this is all driven by, you know, high level of smartphone penetration, high level of data as well, usage. We believe that this is an area that, you know, we can learn from, and we can replicate that success story in other markets in the African continent, and we are busy right now considering those.
Great stuff. Let me open to the floor and also online. Guys, if you are joining us via webcast, please feel free to send your questions. Any questions for the Markets Division? Welcome in, I see you. Going once, going twice. I have a question for you, Yolanda, on the, on Uganda data. I see that there's been some interesting developments when it comes to driving connectivity over there. How's that going?
That's going very well. I mean, Ralph, in his presentation, actually mentioned the CHASE framework that we've been actually driving throughout the organization. For us to double data, we're actually focusing a lot on how we actually execute on that model. From a Uganda perspective, specifically, we actually started with the connectivity layer and increased our 4G penetration and our coverage on 4G. What we did, we actually moved that from about 45% all the way to about 75%, and that on its own resulted in us actually moving our data subs actually more onto the 4G network. Today, Uganda, actually, the data contribution on 4G is about 62% of our overall kind of traffic.
As we actually invested in the last sort of 18 months, we saw a 52% increase in traffic, in absolute terms in that regard, and 28% increase in revenue. Being very disciplined about it. Maybe one of the things that I actually have to touch on is that the CHASE framework obviously starts with the C, but it also has the handset, which was a key challenge. One of the things that we've been doing in Uganda specifically, is actually negotiating with partners to actually help us with the distribution of handsets. As we do that, what we're finding is that actually our partners want to partner with us, right? If I look at, I mean, we tackled it at multiple levels.
It's negotiations with the likes of Transsion, who's TECNO, and those guys, and also doing device financing. On the device financing side, maybe this is worth actually noting: In Uganda, last year, we partnered in the last 18 months, we partnered with M-KOPA, the same guys in Kenya, for device financing. Right now, I mean, last year alone, we actually added about 216,000 devices as a result of device financing from their side. On our side, obviously, you always have to have a self-help model, and we do have a self-help model. That self-help model, in the last kind of three months, I think January, we did 10,000 handset device financing. Last month, we did
Two months ago, we did 37,000, and now we're at 56,000 as of end of last month. Real momentum that we're gaining around device financing and the partnerships that we are doing. As we move forward, obviously affordability is important. There's always a lot of discussion around CVM. CVM, we look at it in multiple kind of levels. The first one is the snacking bundles, right? People in my region are not used to data. Our data penetration is still very low, between 25% and 30% in most of the OpCos. We need people to try out data, so we give them small bundles first to actually try out the data.
We actually do bundling when we sell with partners, and we say, "You will get X amount of gigs a month," then we spread it through the month to actually encourage and stimulate usage. Then we actually play with the affordability using CVM, so that we're giving the right offers to the right people and using some of the intelligence in our CVM tool to actually be able to do that. I won't start to speak to the rest of the CHASE model, but I just wanted to give you a sense that it's something that lives every day, and we drive it every day in the organization.
Absolutely. Eben, just in closing, as the Senior VP for Markets, what would you say... You know, with the temptation with MTN Group is to focus on South Africa and Nigeria b ecause they're just so big.
Yeah.
You've got an opportunity here to talk to the investment community. What would be your parting shot?
Well, maybe the model I need to leave with them is the smartphone that we all have, eh? The first S is superior growth. That is what you should continue to expect from us. The P is how we take the platforms to market. H is home. I touch on home from 0.6 million and where we are taking it. O is how we build operational momentum for leverage. N is the nation-state dynamics and all the work that we are doing in terms of the economy and the digital economy approach we want to partner governments on. E is all the work we are doing around efficiency for CapEx, for cost, across all the markets. If you look at it from that category, then the market is a space to watch.
Thank you very much.
Round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, guys. You know, when Eben said the acronym is smartphone, I was going like, "That's going to be a lot of letters to get through." When I heard him say S, then P, I was like, "Thank you." Ladies and gents, it is time for lunch. We're gonna take a lunch break for about 30 minutes to allow you to be able to fill up your tanks. You know where everything is by now. I don't have to repeat it all. Exits on top, exits at the bottom. This takes you straight to the chow. That one, you'll have to take a flight down upstairs to get there. It is 1:10 P.M.
I'd like to get going at 13:40, so if you don't mind grabbing your chow, we get back, and we're gonna focus in the afternoon purely on Fintech, which is by far the most exciting growth prospects of the group. 13:40, we kick off. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready to start. You have one minute to make your way back into the room as we're about to kick off the afternoon session with two very exciting initiatives and business units within the group. I was told I was incorrect by saying one is exciting. They're both exciting. Fiber and fintech. Thank you, Serigne. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to begin the afternoon session. Please make your way into the room as we're about to start in the next 60 seconds. Thank you.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us again. I hope you enjoyed your lunch as well as I did. Of course, to the folks at home, welcome back, and I hope you did, too. We couldn't WhatsApp you any lunch, I'm pretty sure you sorted yourselves out wherever you are. We're gonna be moving on with our program, we've got two very exciting businesses. I was called to order when I said one was exciting. They're both exciting, that's the fiber business as well as the fintech business. As part of MTN's strategic priority to drive industry-leading connectivity operations, the MTN Group has very clear ambitions on two key things. Number one to own the home and also to be the leading fiber co in Africa.
To take us through the progress that has been made to date, I'd like to introduce you to Jens Schulte-Bockum, who is the MTN Group Chief Operating Officer, and he's going to be joined by the MTN Group Chief Technology and Information Officer, Mazen Mroué, on Own the Home. As they come up, we're going to be watching a video on what MTN calls OTH.
In 2022, we made significant progress toward achieving our Own the Home objectives as part of the implementation of our Ambition 2025 strategy. We experienced a remarkable increase in our customer base with a year-on-year growth of +84%. Our growth primarily stemmed from fixed-wireless access and MBB, while we also observed a growing demand for FTTH. We're currently assessing the most cost-effective approach to deploy FTTH and cater to this emerging demand.
At the end of August 2022, we achieved the 1 million mark. This was a major milestone for us at MTN Nigeria, and by Quarter 1, 2023, we had over 1.3 million connected homes. This represents an 83% year-on-year growth and also an over 200% growth year-on-year in revenues. We have been able to achieve our success riding on our 4G and 5G technology to drive the fixed wireless access solutions that we take to market.
In South Africa, we've got a very big opportunity in owning the home. In line with Ambition 2025 of wanting to pass in excess of 2 million, you know, homes by 2025. I think as much as the ambition is really big, but it's achievable. Simply because of our strength, we are a very well-known brand. Because of our footprint that we have, people then can walk into our stores, they can get the service that they need, whether it's fiber services, whether it's fixed wireless services, or whether it's mobile internet services, and, of course, I mean, at the back of our infrastructure. As such, we create an ecosystem where we can then bring internet closer to the people.
Good afternoon, for the afternoon session. First of all, I'm pleased to see that some of you have survived until now. What I can tell you is the end is nigh. We are on the last stretch of our presentations, and I'd like to take you on a journey to what we are trying to plan around the home and the broader fiber opportunity. We'll talk about home first, and then secondly, we'll cover fiber, our Bayobab set up in the next section. I think it's quite topical because what you saw this morning in the individual markets overview, is that we are currently still sitting on a long-term growth trend of mobile data. We've had mobile data growth with a CAGR of about 30% over the last few years.
Obviously, as a long-term, committed business that wants to win in connectivity and wants to lead in an industry-leading way, the connectivity field, we need to plan ahead, we need to think ahead. Hence, the home opportunity is very, very central to what we believe we need to do in the next few years. Let me try to put things a little bit in perspective. Here in this chart, we're looking at our top six markets. In those markets, we see a growth to about 125 million households. That's the overall scope of the market by 2025. Obviously, not all of these households will be addressable from a financial affordability perspective, from a coverage perspective, and so forth, but we've estimated that roughly one of three households will become eligible for home connectivity by 2025.
Underneath, you see a set of different ways the industry collectively is covering these households. Obviously, this data also reflects our own plans to a large extent. By 2025, we will have grown our fast broadband mobile coverage, so 4G plus, to more than 90% of these households. There's going to be a rapid acceleration of 5G coverage, and we estimate that we'll be sitting at about 40%-50% household coverage with 5G by 2025. You finally also see that the fiber opportunity is kicking in. Our estimate is that we currently have about 6 million homes passed in those six markets. The vast majority of that is sitting, probably 2/3s of that, sitting in South Africa.
It's very nascent outside South Africa, but that is expected to double roughly in the time frame, and I think it will continue to grow dynamically, even though we would argue that the next few years will be still very wireless-centric, but over time, pivoting more and more always also to fiber connectivity. This represents, in value pool terms, about ZAR 120 billion of revenue in 2025. Quite a juicy addressable market that is giving us the prospect of extending our data growth story beyond the near term, which is still very much mobile smartphone-driven. Here in this chart, you see a bit of a breakdown on how we believe the technology mix will unfold, and we'll come back to that in a little bit more detail and explain the underlying technology trade-offs.
My colleague, Mazen, will explore that further later in the presentation. Roughly, what you see is still a landscape dominated for the foreseeable future by MiFi, by mobile broadband, with fixed wireless access kicking in, largely fueled by 5G, and what looks like a very small segment on fiber to the home. That is a high-value segment, because you also see on the right-hand side, the corresponding ARPU for different technologies. They range from as low as $3 for a decent MiFi-based, mobile broadband-based service, all the way to $20 + for a fiber-based service. In some cases, you know, we are still sitting in a very high-value, fiber-centric model that, you know, where the ARPUs in Africa can be even above $50.
We expect that to moderate a little bit, you know, there is substantial value pool size in the fiber side coming through over the next few years. Where are we now, and how does that contextualize towards the Ambition 2025? Historically, we haven't very much focused on home. Only a year ago, we were just sitting at 1.7 million subscribers across the group. That has grown 40% year-over-year, simply because we started to focus, and mostly on the back of wireless technologies that we are driving the growth with. By 2025, our ambition is 10 million homes are connected on MTN home connectivity with a mix of MBB, fixed wireless access, and fiber. That sounds like a big number.
We think the 2.4 million that we have right now is going to grow organically to roughly 8 million. I was very pleased to see that my colleague, Karl, already committed up to 5 million for Nigeria. That's a big relief, so I'm sorted as far as my targets are concerned. We saw that South Africa will be contributing probably between 1.5 million-2.5 million homes, depending on a contribution of inorganic activity. I'll come back to that, because we do realize, particularly in the fiber domain, that we won't be able to address that market organically, but there is, and continues to be a significant wireless segment in South Africa as well.
We think that, you know, quite rapid evolution to 10 million subscribers will be possible, and that represents then roughly 30% market share in those top six markets in terms of home connectivity, which we believe we also need to safeguard our overall mobile position, because a lot of the high-value households will pivot their primary relationship towards home connectivity and look at mobile connectivity increasingly as a bolt-on. Which is the trend you see in more developed markets in Europe and North America, where actually the choice of a household is anchored in the home connectivity, and everything else ultimately becomes then an add-on. Let's explore the market dynamics a little bit more in detail, because ultimately, home is a very, very local strategy, local proposition that needs to be adapted to the realities of the specific markets.
As I mentioned, the South African market is already quite developed. We've had a legacy, of course, operational on DSL that has already pivoted aggressively towards fiber. Most of the medium and high-value geographies in South Africa are covered by fiber today. There is still an incremental opportunity in provincial cities, in some of the higher-value rural areas of the country, but it's already abating from a coverage perspective on fiber. In the meantime, there's been very, very strong growth on the wireless segment in South Africa, as well, and Charles talked about that, to initially address the wireless segment. We have, at this point in time, admittedly, a subscale, S upersonic vehicle as an ISP on the fixed side.
We realize that that scale alone is not going to take us to where we need to be competitively. We will be exploring consolidation opportunities as we believe the market consolidates. If you look at the South African environment, it's a highly fragmented market, both at the fixed network operator side and also at the ISP side. Based on international precedents, it can be expected to consolidate, and we will explore options to double down on this segment because we believe, again, it's an anchor choice for households. For their overall communication portfolio, we've got to be there. If you look at Nigeria, it's a very different market environment. Much more blue sky, very limited fixed broadband connectivity, except for some high-value clusters that Karl already referred to. We are already in the game.
We are one of the early players in that market, but we do believe that the market is for us to make. Eventually, based on the experience that we are drawing from Latin America, from Southeast Asia, we will see medium and higher level income, high-density areas being covered by fiber as well. For the foreseeable future, as I mentioned, and also Karl referred to, the connectivity of choice is going to be 5G. 5G is now rolling out quite explosively in Nigeria. It allows us to offer home connectivity at very attractive price points, and we can certainly address a big chunk of market demand on a wireless basis. We have 100 MHz of spectrum available. Nigeria is predicated to drive explosive growth.
At a later stage, we think as we start to roll out fiber as well, some of that market will start to transition towards fiber, which is ultimately the high-value customer, high-usage customer technology of choice. Then last not least, the next four markets we are considering, are very similar in some way to Nigeria. They exhibit also early-stage development of home connectivity. In Ghana, we've had a very successful platform around a product called TurboNet, which was 4G-based. We realized that without sufficient 5G spectrum and access to 5G, that becomes very, very difficult to execute, so we now need to transition to 5G and ultimately also to fiber.
We are looking in places like Côte d'Ivoire and also Uganda at selective fiber deployments to drive a technology mix that will allow us to address all conceivable household needs in these markets. Let me briefly talk about how these technologies and use cases come together. What we're really starting with is looking at the household needs, and they can range from basically light browsing all the way to low latency, console-based gaming applications. Obviously, not all technologies are equally suited to support these use cases. It's a rather complex chart, but, you know, what you want, or what you will see, is ultimately a mix, a mixed evolution of 4G, 5G, and fiber coverage to different households, depending on what is available in a particular geography and what the household needs are.
I will explain in a minute how that corresponds also to differentiated propositions. Obviously, you can already get the idea. To roll this out effectively, you need a micro marketing approach. You need to look at population density, purchasing behavior, household value in the geographies, and we feel we are extremely well positioned to do that because we have the handset data. We see where the purchasing power sits geographically. We see where the usage sits because it originally comes onto the mobile network via tethering of handsets, then people migrate to MiFi devices, eventually to home routers, still wireless, eventually to fixed routers. The idea is that, with a more dedicated approach to this segment, we will be able to drive that transition and look at the right mix at any given point in time.
We are trying to match the propositions to these demand pockets. What you see on the left-hand side of the chart is basically a simplified description of what our portfolio looks like today. It's 4G-centric, and it's what in the industry we call bucket-based. You get a small, a medium, or a large bucket of data. You get it on 4G, you get it with a mobile broadband device or with a home router, and typically, the price point, the implied price point for the data is much lower than what you would get on a smartphone, but it's basically geolocation coded, so you can only use it in one place. As we are bringing in fixed wireless access based on 5G and fiber, the portfolio will transition to what is on the right-hand side.
There you have unlimited usage, and you have more speed-based differentiation, and you see also additional layers of value add coming in. You know, some of the colleagues talked about our ambitions in digital, the partnerships that we are going through with a number of the OTTs. We believe we can bundle OTT video experiences, to some extent, gaming experience, that sit on top of the pure connectivity. Plus, of course, household security solutions, both, cybersecurity solution and physical home security solutions. Home, basically smart home type of solutions as well will come in as we transition the portfolio more towards the right-hand side. For the avoidance of doubt, we are not giving up 4G anytime soon. That will still, as you saw earlier in the presentation, address the needs of a large chunk of the market, particularly the more suburban and rural segments.
In the more urbanized 5G-covered areas, we'll move quite decisively to the right-hand side of that portfolio. Let me, at this point in time, hand over to Mazen, who will explore the technology mix in a little bit more detail.
Thank you, Jens. In strong alignment with what Jens has shared with us and has presented in the previous slides, and in order to deliver our ambitions for the home, we have considered multiple technologies in order to really deliver the home strategy, specifically within the fixed wireless access and the fiber. Focusing on three, let's say, deployment strategy models. The first one is a fixed wireless within the existing 4G and 5G implementations, offering services based on the spectrum available within the 1-3 GHz, specifically on the 800 MHz, on the 1,800 and the 2.6, and the 3.5, providing the 4G and the 5G services, and delivering.
from 10 MHz up to 1,000 MHz, with a capped model mostly, and uncapped in specific cases whenever we have a sufficient spectrum. Definitely, the coverage in this case vary from 1 - 2 km away. The second model is more about the fixed wireless as a standalone, as a separate investment. Specifically, we're looking here at the spectrum that we can use within the unlicensed band, or within the 5G millimeter wave, within the 26 and 28, specifically GHz, where we are currently exploring, and we are doing a lot of pilots that can really help us to determine the right model when it comes to the dedicated fixed wireless model. Finally, the third deployment model is about the fiber. Specifically, we're looking at under and above ground, depends where it's feasible and available and possible.
The cost definitely is lower when we are above the ground. Definitely, we are looking at the areas where are very much concentrated and definitely where there is high demand. There is also demand for low latency and definitely for much more online services. Looking at the next slide, definitely, if we have the right strategy and the right plans and the right technology, that is not enough.
To make it happen, definitely we need to look at the operational side of the plan. For that, we make sure that during our assessments for the deployments of the fixed wireless and the fiber, that we have very much dedicated teams on the ground, commercially and technologically, separated from the mobile business, dedicatedly focusing on the fixed wireless and the fiber propositions, supported by separated agents within the call center and the customer services. The aim is to make sure we provide a superior support services and attention to the potential customers for the fixed wireless and the fiber, for the FTTH. The second area is mostly about the journey for customer experience.
Definitely here, we make sure, we are making sure, that the whole journey end-to-end is digitized, allowing the customers to order, to track the order, to be delivered, to be implemented, to go live, to be activated, to be paid, definitely with for support after sales as well within the same journey, fully automated. Definitely with the expansion of the channels to ensure that based on the customer's lifestyles and availability, whether online or physically, within the app or within the web, or within the portal or within the e-commerce, all those channels are made available to ensure the customer has a superior customer experience journey to acquire the products. Definitely, the third area, which is also very much thought about it, is more about the logistics.
Making sure that we have very strong processes in place, in place to order, to collect, to refurbish, and to really reinstall the CPEs, to reuse the CPEs where available and applicable. Finally, if this is really a good example when it comes to the fixed wireless and to the fiber, good example on how to use the AI within the telco, and specifically where we look at different scenarios, as a scenario of a customers living an area where we have 4G and 5G coverage, but is using a legacy network. Here, the AI model and the algorithm play a vital role to determine those subscribers. Another scenario where we have high-use customers who are really living in areas where we have limited technology.
Here, the AI also comes with a role on how we can accelerate and prioritize the expansion and the improvement of the network. Another example, with the profile of the subscribers who are really demanding for low latency and for an uncap usage, the role of fiber becomes required, and the AI model help as well to determine the targeted customers. That's really another also scenario, which is very helpful. We're looking at the profile of subscribers. For those who are using heavily our voice, but very limited the data, the AI model also comes up with different scenarios that can really help to approach those customers, upsell, and make sure that they enjoy MTN fixed, wireless, and FTTH service. Back to you, Jens.
Thanks, thanks, Mazen. Am I back on? Yeah. Just to summarize, what we want to leave you with is a couple of thoughts here. This is a significant opportunity. 37 million households eligible in our footprint, we are planning to address 10 million. 10 million households doesn't seem to sound a lot compared to 300 million mobile subscribers, but the reality is the ARPU of these services is roughly 3 x the ARPU of what we see on the mobility side. This is already, by 2025, a significant market, and it's bound to grow way beyond that. What we see in other parts of the world is that ultimately, 50%-60% of homes in emerging markets will become takers of fixed or fixed wireless mobile, fixed wireless services for home connectivity.
We will evolve our portfolio in a very flexible way. Based on what Mazen has laid out, it will be a suitable mix of technology that really reacts to the specifics of the local market, spectrum availability, household density, purchasing behavior, and the like. That also necessitates that we drive localized implementation on a market-by-market basis, and we're currently working with all of our principal markets to achieve that. We have four POCs running, initiated right now on fiber to the home. Of course, in the meantime, the wireless solutions are scaling quite aggressively. We take a lot of inspiration, I talked about that, we have partnerships around the world and relations around the world that we've leveraged, particularly in the last half year. We've actually spent time with Telefónica, talking about their Latin American operations.
We spent time with Tigo, Millicom Tigo, in Central America. We spent time with Axiata in Asia. These are all, in a way, emerging market colleagues who are slightly more advanced as it comes to managing the home space. We think we can transfer a lot of these insights into the African context and make it work in an environment that, outside South Africa, is still very much a blue sky environment. Very excited about this opportunity, and hopefully, that will extend our data growth opportunity way beyond the current 30% CAGR phase that we see on mobility. This will kick in and hopefully also allow you to believe that there is still a lot of gas in the tank for the core connectivity business. Thank you very much.
Very much to Jens and Mazen for those two presentations. We're gonna move on and keep it moving. We have a very brand-new, rebranded FibreCo business, Bayobab. Before we get to those presentations, we're gonna watch a short video.
Since MTN Global Connect's inception, a little over 5 years ago, we have been steadily expanding to deliver next-gen digital connectivity across the African continent and beyond. 2 years ago, MTN Group, our parent company, announced a structural separation of its fiber business, due to be completed in 2024. This restructuring is a critical step in our quest to bridge the digital divide, and it also marks a milestone of our sense of identity as a company. We are proud of where we have come from as MTN Global Connect, and we celebrate where we are going. World, I'm excited to introduce you to Bayobab. Renamed after Africa's iconic tree, Bayobab symbolizes our universe. We have found inspiration in its resilience and longevity. Just like Africa's tree of life, we have made a living connecting ecosystems across Africa's vast regions.
As a business, we lay digital infrastructure and securely move data worldwide. We are deeply invested and entrenched in the African continent, a continent brimming with potential and possibility. Every fiber route that reaches a country or a village increases someone's possibilities. Every time your mobile lights up with an SMS, a voice call, or you make a data connection, we make that happen. We are proud of our heritage as part of one of the continent's biggest brands, and we take this bold step purposefully, still driven by the belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern, connected life. On our journey, we look forward to forging partnerships with host governments, global partners, and communities as we work together to connect Africa. We are Bayobab.
The timing couldn't be better, considering that the brand just launched in the last couple of weeks. We are very excited. As the video showed, Bayobab is a tree that is an ecosystem in its own right. You know, I'm not a biologist, so I'm not gonna dwell on it for too long. We take that inspiration, and we really want to make sure that we change lives by bridging the digital divide and connecting communities across the whole continent. We will do that with next-generation open access digital solutions. That is the core of the Bayobab proposition. Of course, it's all fueled by the core belief that we share across MTN, that everybody deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.
To enable that, it is obviously critical to ensure the connectivity within the continent and to the outside of the continent. Before I start to focus more exclusively on the fiber side of the business, let me talk briefly about the current setup of Bayobab, because it's actually two businesses rolled in one. What we are consolidating under Fréd's leadership, and, you know, Fréd will join me in a minute, is, on one hand, the communication platform business. This is what people historically refer to as interconnect. It also includes now A2P solutions, application-to-person messaging, which is a very profitable, fast-growing business segment, and IPX solutions that allow basically Internet players to drive their innovation on the continent and to connect to the continent's customer base.
The business setup is, of course, focused on enabling connectivity for our own operating companies, but we're also making it available for third parties. It is a trading business, so you see relatively higher revenue numbers, but it's a relatively low margin business because effectively, you're trading connectivity in and outside the continent. There is a juicy margin that allows us to reinvest some of the margin we generate, because we have a captive customer base into the fiber side, which is on the right-hand of this chart. Fiber obviously is fueled by our current position in undersea cables. As we said in the video, we only started to look at fiber as a commercial third-party opportunity in 2018.
We incorporated what was then called MTN GlobalConnect in 2020, we've just now transitioned to Bayobab Fibre, which is addressing this opportunity with the aspiration to basically combine the undersea cable assets with the terrestrial assets, that are currently still largely sitting in our operating companies, and of which we have 107,000 km of proprietary, so fully physically owned fiber, which is a second to none position on the African continent. You see here also that the revenue is growing very dynamically. A lot of that is fueled by third-party commercialization, which, as I mentioned, we didn't have before MTN GlobalConnect at the time started, now external parties are contributing significantly to that revenue generation. The fiber side is generating very healthy margins. It's not a trading business.
That is obviously an infrastructure-based business, so you can think of margins in excess of 40% for the fiber business. As we are unbundling that business and carving it out, we'll obviously come back to you and give you more information of the detailed financial profile of that business. You have to forgive me if I'm just indicative at this point in time. Now, just one final word on the communication platform. This really is a turnkey solution, a one-stop shopping solution for parties that want to come to the continent, and we've been able to attract basically all the big hyperscaler customers in the last two years.
We're doing business for Meta, we're doing business for Microsoft, for Google, and the like, but of course, also connecting to the other mobile network operator groups globally and indirectly to a lot of people who are looking at advanced, you know, remote connectivity solutions, which is happening on this side. Historically, we relied a lot on third parties, we've been able to internalize that traffic onto the Bayobab communications platforms, and hub it, you know, basically out of physical presence that we have in Amsterdam and in London that connect ultimately the continent, all operating companies. Effectively, the aspiration here is to internalize all the international traffic onto the communication platform, and that also allows us to avoid and minimize bypassing, gray routing of traffic and so forth, third-party solutions, where the margin is left with somebody else.
We've been able to internalize a lot of that margin in the last few years. Now, as I said, I will now use the rest of the presentation, together with Fréd, to exclusively talk about the fiber side of the business. This chart illustrates a little bit where we aim to be in 2025. You see here the participation in 16 undersea cables that will grow, I believe, to 17 by 2025. We are activating, as we speak, 2Africa and Equiano, where we have made deals to get physical fiber access on these networks that allows us to be a reseller of that capacity. Of course, we still have significant participation in a lot of the, let's say, more legacy consortia in the undersea cable space as well.
The footprint of terrestrial fiber is expected to grow to about 135,000 km in that time frame. Already today, our Bayobab organization, based out of Dubai, can commercialize the end-to-end solution. That is very critical to appreciate. We can actually connect a business in Frankfurt to a business in South Africa or in Zambia or in Rwanda, end-to-end, largely based on our own infrastructure. That puts us into quite a unique position from a leased line and connectivity perspective, and it's particularly relevant for the data center players and the hyperscalers as they come into the continent. We have made significant progress.
I don't want to rehash, some of the numbers that I've already shared. You see that we've been able to grow, just in the last two years, the terrestrial fiber estate by 22,000 km. That is still largely happening within operating companies, but we've already started, via Bayobab, to directly invest into markets where we set ourselves up, for instance, in Zambia and in Kenya, where we've converted a prior ISP into a fiber-dedicated vehicle, and we've started to invest directly. The undersea cables represent 300,000 km of connectivity. It's a bit of an artificial number. You need a lot of space on the ocean to drive that connectivity, and that is going to grow somewhat based on the Equiano and 2Africa, deals that are coming up. We started to incorporate local fiber cos.
If you fast-forward to Ambition 2025, the idea is that we will have fiber cos incorporated in all of our principal market, plus, part of a project that is called East to West, that Fréd will come back to and explain in a little bit more detail. You have the combination of the existing undersea cable estate, the existing terrestrial build that we are already doing via Bayobab, and then the carve-out that is coming from the operating companies effectively in one entity that will have these local subsidiaries, but control that value chain end-to-end. We are very bullish about the demand drivers here, because as we saw from the other presentations, mobile data is still growing dynamically. It's expected to grow sixfold between 2021 and 2027. We talked about home a minute ago.
The home opportunity, particularly the fixed fiber home op, opportunity, is very nascent on the continent, and there's no reason to believe that Africa won't catch up in time to other regions of the world. We are not gonna be America overnight, but we will be in a similar place as Southeast Asia and Latin America before long, and that is coming with an explosion of data usage. You saw earlier that the average users on a smartphone in Nigeria was about 7 GB per month and per user. The average household usage in the U.K. on a fixed fiber line is 400 GB. So that's a factor of 50, basically, on a single user. So the growth of data demand is gonna be colossal, and we wanna be right there and drive that. The rationale to carve this out as a business is basically threefold.
One is a more efficient capital structure. We can attract third-party capital. The return times for fiber business are different from the mobility business. It is lower risk, but also lower return. It is attractive for a different type of investor and potentially co-investors that would share some of the burden of what we plan to do over the next years, and that's part of the carve-out rationale to open the platform up to third-party investors. Secondly, focused management. Historically, I said before, four years ago, we didn't even think about commercializing our undersea cable assets to third parties. Now, we are in a focused way, going after that market. You know, we have large teams at international fora, like the ITW conference that just happened a couple of weeks ago in the U.S., engaging with all the other carriers and hyperscalers to suit their needs.
We've built that commercial muscle and that dedicated business approach that Fréd, I think, very convincingly, stands for. Last not least, it's, this is bound to become open access. Ralph has already talked about the regulatory aspects of opening this up for third parties, but of course, there's also business rationale, because it's similar to the TowerCo business, where the economics are ultimately going to be driven by multi-tenancy and burden-sharing for a heavy fixed investment that very few people can do. We are going to be that player on the African continent. Just to put it in context of the value chain, you see here end-to-end that the entire telecom value chain is ultimately powered by fiber.
You know, some people jokingly say all that a mobile or a telecom network is a fiber network with a little bit of mobility at the end. The question is, how far is that mobility? Is that just effectively Wi-Fi in your home, or is it a little bit more like our radio access networks? Everything except for fiber to the home and the radio access network, which we see as part of our operating companies, is ultimately going to be carved out into these structures so that we have end-to-end control and can develop that business system. Of course, you see here at the center, the data centers, and they are a critical asset that we currently hold. There is scarcity of data centers in Africa.
While there are a lot of investment projects, they are there for a reason. MTN has capillarity. Once we are done with the fiber carve-out, we look at the data center carve-out. Our plan is to attract suitable co-investors. We don't think that we have the right commercial profile to monetize the data centers directly. We'd be probably looking for partners that bring effectively, management control and commercial leadership into the data center space. We want to do it in a way that it continues to benefit our fiber assets. Our fiber assets remain, of course, the priority partner for the data center estate in the future. We're not exploring that in more detail today. I think, in a future update, we'll come back to the plans on the data center side.
That's a very interesting project in its own right. For the time being, the FibreCo, the Bayobab scope, will be everything fiber, enabling this end-to-end, value chain. With that, let me hand over to Fréd, who will explore some of the plans in a little bit more detail.
Thank you, Jens. It make me smile also that I see a lot of the group executive committee also starting to adapt. I've got a clicker, don't worry, to adapt our new colorings also. I saw Lele, our Group Chief Executive from legal and regulatory, already adapting the colors. Thank you for that. Even Ralph, I mean, in your very beautiful, elegant dusk-colored suit is very nice also. Thank you for that. I heard a lot of many variations of the name, but let me just be very clear to it. It's Bayobab. Like the Bayobab, we are a digital ecosystem, which we really are driving the digitization of our network across the Pan-African footprint.
As an ecosystem also, we are really on track to create value from our existing capacity, but also building new fiber in order to create new opportunity as an open access for our customers. The East to West Project also, which I will be discussing a little bit later on, will also simply activate a tremendous amount of capacity, dark fiber, and active capacity across more than 10 different countries across our footprint. Mainly the landlocked countries will be well served with that, because, I mean, we've got a lot of arteries, which we call the subsea cables, around the continent, but what is also very important is to have a good connectivity in the continent on all levels.
Also very important, and Jens alluded to it, is the structural separation of our fiber within our mobile operations. We've done quite some major investments already that, and to consolidate all of that under one roof in order to have a open access, neutral setup, will unleash also new opportunities for all of us in order to grow this continent even further. We started in a couple of years ago, and in order to drive with new investment from a capital investment perspective in 2021, and we plan by 2025, based on our Ambition 2025, to spend around $500 million in order to make sure that we deliver that ambition.
Our growth within those five years of existence has been phenomenal, and I thank my team in order to make these significant strides in such a small space of time. We started a very small team with about 10, 20 people in order to first really commercialize our submarine cable infrastructure, and we've built out with our platforms quite a healthy setup. We've been self-funded since the start. We continue to be that, and we are really looking in order to grow even further with partners like yourselves. We provide a one-stop shop, what makes it really attractive for a lot of our customers across the world, actually, where we take away the complexity of dealing with all of us in Africa.
Also having a one-stop shop in order to reach almost 300 million subscribers business, is also extremely appealing to a lot of the parties in the rest of the world, which makes it really interesting also for us to continue driving this dry and wet fiber rollouts across the world, across Africa. Today, like I mentioned, our investments have been self-funded, to give you a bit of an idea how we started, I'll not dwell too much on the details, but, I mean, to give you a clear example, I can give you with Zambia, the way how we operated. We've got around 2,000 km of fiber through our mobile operators, which we are in the process of structurally separating and put into Bayobab, Zambia.
In the meantime, in a two years timeframe, we built already over almost 5,000 kilometers of brand-new fiber, which has been actually very well utilized as we speak, not only by our own mobile operator, but with a lot of other parties in Zambia. Zambia is a very structural country for us, a very important country for us, because it's completely landlocked, but it, of course, surrounding with about nine countries, which we, of course, need to feed and connect across for the continent. In Ghana, I'm super proud of what we've done there, because we had a big chunk of our network operating center activities based outside of Africa.
We took the strategic decision also to really start insourcing that, making sure that our core competencies are continued to be a great success, and also making sure that we've got the right talents in the right countries. We've done that in Ghana and also fractionally in Kenya, where we built our network operating center and our success centers in those two countries. Really happy to continue that journey. Also, what was also announced recently is that we've. I wanna give you a bit more details around that of the deal we've done with Africa50 on our East to West Coast project, which is actually a fundamental game changer on the African continent.
This partnership is done with Africa50, and for the people who don't know Africa50, it's an investment bank, which is focused on high-impact national and regional infrastructure projects. In Africa, it has more than 34 shareholders, of which 31 African countries, of which the Central Bank of West African States, but also the African Development Bank. I think it's a great ally. It's an industrial party to invest into that project. In order to make this happen, we really are building now terrestrial fiber of over 20,000 km, which is quite a big ticket, in order to help bridge Africa's connectivity gap, improving the broadband across this country, mainly landlocked countries also, in order to achieve a very low latency route.
What is quite important also is that, we are also creating fiber cos in all of these countries, even where we don't have mobile operations, which is quite impactful also, and we are there to establishing partnerships with local and international parties across the board. In order to give you a bit of a feedback or update on the market, strategic market fit, I think we are quite well positioned and uniquely positioned in order to grasp a lot of these new opportunities. I think we've got a strong, competitive positioning in the market. We've got a super, experienced and diverse leadership team, also have a very strong track record, as you can see, and also, we do have extremely favorable market dynamics.
What is very, very important to us, and we constantly, every day, are here to delight our customers. If they're internal or external, it doesn't matter. We are, like Jens said, one of the preferred partners of the hyperscalers. We've got more than 1,000 contracts with the world from a roaming perspective, international roaming perspective, voice, messaging, et cetera. What is important is that a lot of the hyperscalers are giving us a big chunk of their needs and capacity to us in Bayobab. Across that, we also drive to make sure that the products and the customer experience are actually the best in class. We do think that we have a good advantage of leveraging the scale of the MTN Group, not only from a mobility services, but also from a fiber infrastructure perspective.
We do have a consistent growth, which we shown over the last couple of years, always been ahead of very tough budgets, and also been self-funded, so far, driving over $500 million in revenue, profitable, revenues across the board. Importantly, also, I think, is Africa's presence, substantial opportunities, like I mentioned, also, not only from a demographic growth perspective, but also from a digital adoption and some, under-penetrated markets. When we look a little bit, on how we navigate the regulatory environments, and I think from a regulatory perspective, we've actually nailed it well in order to have this open access, open access, digital, neutral model.
By doing this, we aiming having the best services across the market, and by opening up, on one side, our network, our proprietary network, to third parties, and on top of that, growing the infrastructure a lot, I think a lot of the regulators like what we are doing also. We also offer them to third parties as well as to our internal customers, to actually be in control of their networks, in the sense that we are helping them doing the hard work.
The model is actually a direct support of the government and regulatory policies in all our markets, and it also provides additional benefits from a government or a telecom aspirations, which includes also strengthening the digital ecosystem, and not only in strengthening the digital hubs, and we all know there are, in Africa, three main digital hubs, which is South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, but everything around now. Through our plans, we are really promoting that. In order to do that, I think we are having a great team to manage that platform. We are continuing in order to grow at a rapid pace, and we really spend a lot of time to having the right individuals into Bayobab, experienced, talented people.
I'm also very proud that within Bayobab, we've got over 44% female colleagues, which is quite an achievement and great to have also in our management team. We've got now four managing directors, and all of them are ladies, which it's really close to my heart in order to make sure that we've got a well-balanced, diverse, let's say, team in place in order to have this fantastic customer experience and delight our customers also. Now, on that note, I'll hand back to Jens in order to conclude.
Yeah. Thanks, thanks a lot. there's not much for me to say, except for summarizing. You know, we want to be a leading player for fiber connectivity on the continent, and we believe there's really only room for very few players. This is a great opportunity to really corner that market to some extent. We have, of course, MTN as a captive customer to start with, and as you saw, we are reinvesting a lot of that potential into building an open access platform of scale that will be second to none on the continent. We believe that when everything is said and done, and we have effectuated the carve-outs from the operating companies, which is, you know, planned to be executed by next year.
We'll be looking, in 2025, at a business that has more than ZAR 300 million of fiber revenues, with about 40% + margin. A lot of you know, in the investor space, that the multiples on fiber business vastly exceeds the multiples that you see in integrating mobile operators. They do that for a reason, because this business intrinsically is longer term, is lower risk, is longer return and investment cycles. We believe we can create a genuine unicorn here, a business that, you know, in the fullness of time will attract third-party capital and scale to one of the leading connectivity platforms in the world, given that Africa is such a sizable geography, that over time will need this level of connectivity. Hopefully, you picked up a bit of excitement in this presentation.
We remain very excited about the connectivity space, whether it is Bayobab or whether it is Home. We believe that in addition to all the other platforms that we are setting up on top of the connectivity space, that pillar in our strategy will continue to thrive and contribute significant returns in years to come. Thank you very much.
Yes, please join us, please. All right, ladies and gents, in the interest of time, I'm not going to waste any more. I've spent enough time with these gentlemen to answer my questions. I'm going to open this to the floor and also to the colleagues online. I do know that, there's a lot of exciting developments that have been presented here, and many of you may have questions. Just by show of hands, yes, sir, let's start with you.
Hi, everyone. It's Prashant from Nedbank. I've got a question, particularly around South Africa and how fiber fits in with your ISP business, Supersonic. You talk about Homes Passed. Can you share with us what's your connectivity rate? And also, how much of your Supersonic subscribers are on your own network versus other networks, and then vice versa, is the MTN FTTH network an open network where other ISPs can also utilize? Thanks.
Yeah, Prashant, thanks for the question. It allows me, first of all, to clarify that we see the fiber to the home opportunity and the Bayobab opportunity as two distinct businesses. One is open access, multi-country, you know, backhaul connectivity. Supersonic is more in the fiber to the home space, and actually, the way we have developed Supersonic recently, it's to reposition it much more as an ISP, rather than a fiber operator. I can't give you the details. I think we'll have to refer that, come back to you. I would have to refer to Charles for the details on the connection rates. It is not in the focus right now to expand Supersonic from a fiber build perspective.
I think when we talked about the Home space earlier, we signaled quite clearly that we don't believe that we have a scale play at this point in time. We need to, you know, reassemble. At this point in time, we are focusing on the ISP layer for fiber. That's what Supersonic does. Supersonic will also support the MTN brand, so that we can offer fiber via Supersonic for the MTN brand as well. You know, the South African market on the home side is basically an open access market. All the fixed network operators are selling to the ISPs, who are then, in turn, selling to the end customers. We want to participate in that opportunity, definitely in the near term.
Everything beyond that would be a question of M&A-related activity to build a stronger position in that particular market.
Great stuff. Any more? No, all good. I have a question for you, Fréd, on Bayobab. You touched on the partnership with Africa50. You didn't get a chance to give us all the details, I just saw $320 million. Who's paying? Who's doing the work? What does it mean?
Well, thanks for that, Andile. There are two things around that construct of the deal. I mean, first of all, we would like to expand 20,000 km of fiber across the East Coast to the West Coast. In order to do that, we're going to go and tree various rings across the continent. In order to enable that, we need to cover over 10 countries on the African continent, and some of these countries are really hard-to-reach countries.
One of the key partnerships we are doing through Africa50 is because they're really entrenched in the continent, also with all these, let's say, shareholders, who owns actually Africa50 also, in order to help us as a real partner, not only from a financial perspective, but also from a industry cooperation perspective and governmental perspective. They're helping us out in a lot of these countries. It's really a partnership which goes beyond just putting some money on the table, which is, of course, very, very helpful. But over the coming years, we will be able to spend over $320 million in order to roll that all off. We progressed already super well. A lot of the highways are being built as we speak.
A lot of the new fiber goals are being set up. As we speak, and you'll hear a lot more about it. What is important also is that we've got a big demand from the hyperscalers in order to lower completely the latency. Because before we were going all around the African continent over the subsea cable infrastructure, either southbound or northbound through Europe. Here we are halving actually the latency, which will of course, give a far better quality, a lot more resiliency, a lot more, let's say, higher quality of service for our customers.
Mazen, on the, on the home perspective, I can only imagine, like, you know, given the difference between all the various markets that the Group operates in and the demands of households and what it is that they want, I mean, it must differ from market to market. Does that complicate your ability to roll all of that stuff out? What kind of dependencies are there from each market to another?
Yeah, I mean, very good question. I mean, as Jens said, the average, let's say, users in Nigeria, as example, is 7 GB per month per user, comparing to probably hundreds in other parts of the world. One of the challenges is really become the ownership of the spectrum that require to be able to roll out the technology that we require within specifically 4G and 5G space. As a market leader, we are always making sure we have an advantage when it comes to the spectrum. Wherever we trigger, let's say, there is a need to expand, we advise our colleagues in the OpCos to go further and acquire additional spectrum. Being a market leader means you have to be always ahead of the curve when it comes to spectrum ownership. That's really one.
The other area as well, to make sure we have, let's say, an advanced planning for rollout of the capacity that's required. That require very good capital allocation exercise and definitely roll out and implementation disciplines to stay ahead and ensure, enough and sufficient capacity that cater for the additional growth of data in our respective markets.
All right. Just checking with the audience if there's any further questions. I see no hands. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Right, that was Owning the Home and Bayobab. Did I pronounce that correctly? Bayobab. There you go. We're gonna move on, and we're gonna get straight into the other exciting business I told you about, and that's the building of the various fintech platforms that MTN Group has been doing. The MTN Group Chief Fintech Officer, Serigne Dioum, will lead this team, and he'll be giving us an overview of MTN Mobile Money or MoMo, as many of you may know it to be. He'll be joined by Eli Hini, who's the CEO of MoMo Payment Service Bank in Nigeria, as well as Adekunle Awobodu, who is the CFO of Group Fintech, and will be speaking to us about the fintech financial framework.
Each of these guys will be giving us a presentation, then we'll wrap up with a Q&A and also wrap up the day. First, a video on MTN Fintech.
Across the world, mobile money services are growing and growing fast. While it took the global industry 17 years to reach the first 800 million customers, it took only 5 years to reach the next 800 million, and of that, 400 million accounts were added over the course of the pandemic. On average, across the African continent, over 90% of all financial transactions are conducted in cash, and mobile money has played a transformational role in our markets, harnessing the power of technology to accelerate financial inclusion. We are building Africa's leading fintech platform, unlocking economic growth through financial and digital solutions for all consumers and businesses of all sizes. We are increasing demand and promising opportunities to accelerate disruption within payments, e-commerce, bank tech, remittance, and Insurtech.
Our MoMo platform has evolved from a mobile wallet service focused on consumers, to a platform enabling payments, remittance, micro and nano loans, and micro and nano insurance. As we continue to scale, our goal is to transition to a super platform that enables consumers and businesses with affordable, inclusive, easy-to-use, and comprehensive financial services. MoMo is restoring dignity to the people of the African continent through creating employment for many through our agent network and creating opportunities for the businesses of Africa. Our diverse offerings, underpinned by our stronghold in mobile wallet capabilities, enables our over 69 million subscribers to access everyday financial services in a convenient, low-cost, and safe way. We continue to play our role in empowering the financially excluded by making world-class financial services accessible to Africans on the continent and anywhere in the world.
Maybe we should start with an exercise, everyone to wake up and sit down so that I can make sure that I get the attention, because after lunch, after Jens, some may have start to sleep. I'm going, this afternoon, to present to you, give you a view of our fintech journey. Remember, two years and half ago, in between two various of viruses, we had our Capital Markets Day, where we revealed our fintech strategy. That time, some of what we wanted to do was mainly concepts, but now, I'm happy to tell to you that we have materialized, started launching most of them.
It is really, you know, very concrete. What I will do today is that I will start by giving you an overview of our Fintech business, give you some flavor of the context where we are operating, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time because yesterday, this morning, people talked about it. We'll also refresh a bit our strategy, then go into what is more important today for us, which is, where are we on the implementation of our strategy, the execution of our strategy? We'll call on stage Eli, to take you through our business, where we are in Nigeria, and Kunle also will unpack the financial framework. I will start with giving you an overview of our Fintech business currently.
We'll start by telling you, just for you to appreciate where we are coming from. We started our journey in 2007 in Uganda, where our customers were able to buy airtime and to transfer money, what we usually call P2P. Since that, we've expanded our services into 15 more countries. We are now in 16 countries, and also, most importantly, we've expanded also the portfolio of product and services that we have across our footprint, and we'll come to that later. Just for you to have a view on how this business have been growing, in 2013, we had 2 million active customers. Accidentally, it is when I joined, was appointed to be head of fintech. 2016, we had a round 2017, 2016, we were 46 million, 2017, 21 million, 2020, 46 million, and end of last year, 69 million active customers.
We have been growing the business very in a very fast way, and we'll unpack that later within the presentation. Now, I would like to just also for you to appreciate the vision that we have, to remind it to everyone, which is that we want to be the largest fintech platform in Africa. We believe that we are already the largest fintech business in Africa, but we would like, in 2025, to be by far the largest one. For that, we've deployed a portfolio of products of, and services to our customers.
Today, we are addressing consumers, but also, very importantly, we are addressing businesses, and mainly also SMEs and very small businesses as well. Today, a mobile money consumer is able to put money into his wallet, to send money, to buy airtime, to get loan, to pay merchants, to send money or receive money internationally, and also to be able to get micro or nano insurance. Our businesses, we started with them mainly with payment.
Most of them are able to, with our stack MoMo Pay, to be able to receive money, but also they're able to pay salaries, they're able also to pay their suppliers, they're able to, when there is a need, to have more working capital from us by taking a loan, and also, they're able also to expose their product and services within our e-commerce platform, and we'll get back to that later. As you can see, the more we go, the more we are shifting our revenue from consumer base to businesses, getting more money from businesses. That is very important because most of the things that you see on your left, we would like them to be commodity by 2025, and a little bit more, and then to get extract more value from our, the businesses we are working with.
Now, I'm going to unpack the operating context, and we'll start with talking about potential. First of all, the potential in Africa, I think we talked about it. More than 55% of people of adult population is at a working stage in Africa. Also, you can see that where we are operating, more than 65% of adult populations are unbanked or underbanked, which is a huge potential for us. Also, you can see that still 90% of transactions in Africa are cash. Like one would say, "Cash is still king." We really that shows that there is a huge potential in Africa when it comes to fintech.
In the rest of the presentation, I'm going to show to you how MTN fintech is unlocking that potential, tapping into that potential, and also to show you also how in the future we will do it much more even. Would not be fair to present, to talk about fintech in Africa without also talking about the regulation, the regulatory environment. We are operating in a tough regulatory environment. No need to talk about it, come back, because people talked about it since yesterday. What I would like to show to you is that we've made a lot of progress on getting licenses where we're operating. If you look at the table, you would see that in most of our countries, we have what we call EMI licenses, which is Electronic Money Insurer, Issuer licenses.
That allow us to operate independently and to be able also to be regulated by the Central Bank, and for us to launch new products and services, go-to-market is faster because we interact directly with the Central Banks. There is only one country here where we still work in the bank-like regime, where we leverage a banking partner licenses to be able to operate. It is South Africa. We are sure that regulation evolve, and we'll get there in South Africa. Something also very important is that these licenses come with a lot of compliance that we need to fulfill, and we at MTN have a very strong compliance and regulatory teams, and they are really working.
We understand the regulation and the regulations, and also we have a very strong compliance framework that we are implementing to really make sure that we lower the risk profile for our fintech business. We have a very strong, I think Ralph talked about it earlier, stakeholder framework, work with a, you know, central team from Nompilo supporting us, and we have really a very strong framework that we are implementing across the footprint, and which is helping us also to be able to manage our key stakeholders, which are the central bank, which are also our customers and partners. I talked about the potential earlier, but as you can see or as you know already, we have a lot of companies in Africa that are trying to also capture the fintech potential.
Here you have some of them, and you can classify them. Most of them are classifying themselves or calling themselves super wallets. Also, you can see that most of them are local. They're in one country. Some of them are in couple of countries. We can call them regional, but us. Some of them are also Pan-Africans. Also, some of them are addressing one vertical, some two verticals, some more than two or three verticals. In the next slide, I would like. Also, some of them are super platform who are operating in Africa, and they are Pan-African super wallets. I would like to focus a bit on those ones today, and who are trying to build the same thing that as MTN fintech we are building.
If you can see, you see there is a competitor one. I had the name, so that it look like that, but with the colors, you can guess. Don't be surprised, the blue is MTN MoMo. Talking about dress code, I'm trying also to Ralph was complaining this morning: where is the yellow? I was telling to him that yellow was a past, now we are blue. You can see that the blue as MTN Fintech, what is important is that these figures comes from GSMA. Every year, they release what they call the state of the mobile money industry. If you look at MTN Mobile Money, globally, I think we are a key global player.
We have 17% of the global wallets within the world, which is quite substantial. We also, if you look at Africa, you would see that we have more than 30% of the wallets in Africa, and also more than 30% of the transaction values in Africa are processed by MTN fintech. Which position us really in Africa, we are well positioned, but after, in the rest of the presentation, I will show to you that we will be even better positioned in 2025. Just for you to see that we've made good progress, and we're ahead of our competitors, and we are also the biggest player in Africa when it comes to mobile money.
Now I'm going to unpack a bit the execution of Ambition 2025. We'll start with this slide, where you can see that in 2020, we had 46 million wallets, we had 800 million agents, and we had 440,000 merchants. End of last year, we had 69 million active mobile money customers, fintech customers, 1.3 million agents, and you could see that we have 1.5 million merchants. 2025, we're still aiming 100 million active customers, more than 2 million agents, and 5 million active merchants. If you look at where we are today, we are very confident that we will be getting to meeting our KPIs for 2025, and I will unpack that later.
Just a view on regional basis for you to understand also, how we, how our customers are being spread. You can see that even if we started with Uganda, I talked about it earlier, but you can see that what is important here is that we are being successful everywhere. I think this is one of the powers that we have today, is that we are not successful only in one or two countries, but we are becoming successful everywhere. That shows that we have a framework which works in all our countries, and we make sure that even it is a small country, we are becoming successful there, and fintech is becoming important. There is one chart that you will see which will position it better so that you can feel it better.
As we said, we have very bold ambitions, and 2020, 2021, when we had the CMD, we revealed the strategy, which was bold. Where the B is that we wanted to become the biggest fintech platform, operate as an OTT, leverage MTN core connectivity, and deliver five verticals in one. As you see, today, we are the biggest fintech platform in Africa. We are in 16 countries. We have more than 69 million active customers, and also we have very vast and large agent network. In the second part of the O, you can see that we started that time talking about structural separation. Now it is largely completed, and we made very good progress on that.
In most of our countries or in all our countries, there is a separated business with a CEO, CFO and, you know, and it is working really separately, structurally separated. Also, you can see that we really started also to position ourself as an OTT. In some of our countries, and we are rolling out everywhere, you can see that we are today able to onboard non-MTN customers as fintech customers, which is very important. Something very important also is that we are moving, really, our customers from USSD journey to an app-based journey. Really, what we are doing is that, first of all, we are launching a first-class app now. We've migrated our stack, and in some countries, we have, you know, and we are doing it this year.
By end of this year, we'll have it everywhere. Also, we are focusing really in terms of field activity, in terms of marketing, to move our customers from USSD to app. That gives to them a better experience, but also it makes our business more sustainable, because when competition will come, OTT from Europe, U.S., they will come with an app, with a good experience, and we want to make sure that our customers have that before. Leverage MTN core's connectivity. That is very, very important because MTN, I will come back to that, we have unique assets, and we are leveraging as MTN fintech to really grow our business and to be where we are today. I have a slide on that. Deliver five verticals in one. We talked about the wallet is where we started.
Payment and e-commerce is the second vertical. Bank tech lending is the third vertical. Insurtech is the fourth vertical, and international remittance is the fifth vertical. For all of them, we made significant progress, but I have slide for each of them, and I will unpack it later. Yes, this is my favorite slide because I mean, one need to be grateful and to recognize the reality is that we've built this business using MTN assets. Why? Because MTN has unique assets in the continent that no one else has. We have the most loved brand. We have the largest customer base. We have the largest distribution network. We have, most importantly, people who know the continent, people who are very skilled as well. That, you cannot find it anywhere else.
Those are the assets that we have been leveraging on, and we will still continuing leveraging on those assets to scale further the fintech business. If one can ask, what is differentiating from you from the others? This is 80% of that. It's very important we have something that anyone else has in the continent. Now I'm going to unpack in detail each of the verticals, and we'll start with the wallet business. You can see the chart here. First of all, the wallet business is a very scaled business. As I said, we have the biggest wallet business in Africa, 69 million customers in 16 countries. It is a scaled business already. This chart, the objective is to show to you the potential that we still have.
You can see that on your left, you have the penetration of fintech, if you compare it to GSM. Also you have the tenure, when we the maturity of the business, we could see when we launched the number of years. You can see that Uganda, as I've said, is the country that we've launched first. You see that Uganda, the penetration is high. You see that Ghana came after. What is important here is that we took a lot of time for Uganda to be where it is today. If you look at countries like Congo B, for example, they took maybe third of the time to be where they are today. That means we've learned lessons when we built Uganda, Ghana, and we are applying to other OpCos to help us to scale them faster.
It brings me to Nigeria and South Africa. Nigeria, as Charles said earlier, we had our Karl mentioned earlier, we had our license last year, and we spent most of the time to really recruit people, focus on the compliance side, and also get the platform right, and some basics are being. Now we are ready to accelerate, but you see that the potential of Nigeria to bring it to where Uganda is, will bring us to the 35 million that Eli will talk about earlier. Also, we'll do the same with South Africa, get to the 5 million.
Why we are confident that we will be able to achieve our 100 million customers, how we will do it, the operations where we are operating today, will increase further the penetration, all of them to be where Uganda is today, and also the new markets like Nigeria, will be successful in Nigeria, and we'll scale Nigeria. That will bring us to the 100 million. Now, payment and e-commerce. This is very important because we want to build the largest fintech business. That means that we want to have 100 million customers, but we want also to build the largest fintech ecosystem in Africa. To get there, you need to have the largest merchant ecosystem. Today we have 1.5 million merchant, and we are looking at 5 million in 2025.
Today, our merchants are able to accept the payment, they're able to pay their suppliers, they're able to get more capital with our lending, merchant lending business, they're able to sell airtime, and they're able also, importantly, if they want to connect to us, to use OpenAPI. I would like to stop a bit. We, MTN, are very humble people. Most of the time, we don't talk about our success, our successes, but OpenAPI is one of those that we are the first fintech or mobile money operator in Africa to launch an OpenAPI. Before, for any merchant or business to connect to us, they needed to build a VPN, to take six months, get credentials, start testing, and it used to be, like, two years project.
Today, for any business to integrate to us, they will go to momodeveloper.com, you can try it, and download the APIs. There is the sandbox. They do their development, they test with the sandbox, and when they are ready, they can download the documents, fill them, subscribe, and then we take two, three days, our back office, and then the service is open for them, to them. We have a lot of APIs, and that is something very powerful. The API platform is gaining more and more. We see that people are still not interested talking to us because they have this, and it is something very important. We had many awards on this. The last one was two, three weeks ago in Dubai.
This is something which is empowering our business very importantly. How we are going to get now to the one that to the 5 million merchant users merchants by 2025, is that, as you can see, we are growing very quickly, 400,00 2020, 1.5 million, end of last year, and we'll continue that in the existing markets. Nigeria also will contribute, and Eli Hini will talk to that. Also we'll continue making sure that we are launching an e-commerce platform, that is in pilot in three of our countries today, and it will help really the merchants also to be able to expose their product and services in a second channel.
The value-added services that I talked about are very important because what we want is that the merchants that we will have, we give to them everything they need, so that anyone else who come won't be able to propose to them something that they don't find for us. We did some work to understand what are the needs of our merchants. Also, a second differentiator is really the value proposition. If you go to Europe, U.S., merchants, value proposition, merchants need to pay $20 every month, so there is nothing. Our merchants do not pay in a monthly basis, and they pay in a transaction basis, and we think that that is the right value proposition for them. BankTech lending.
This is also, as I said earlier, you know, it has a very big potential. Lending is untapped in Africa. As you know, getting a loan is very difficult. Only 4% of adult population have access to lending. As MTN, with the set of data we have on our customers, with also the partnership we have on banking partners, we are able to really uniquely position to capture the potential of lending. We started that journey in 2014, and lending is already a scale business for us. Last year, we disbursed more than $1.4 billion loans to our customers. Our ambitions are very big on lending, and we want to capture that market as much as possible. We have a set of lending products that we are working on.
All of them are live in some countries. The bullet loan, as I said, we have it since 2014, 2015. Now we are working on our own lending products, which are overdraft for consumers, for agent, for merchants, and we are rolling them out across the footprint. We feel that lending in the coming years will become the biggest revenue contributor, and how we'll achieve that, is that the all products we have on lending, we'll deploy them across the footprint, and we think that we'll be able to act to extract a lot of value on that. Remittance, international remittance, it has a huge potential as well. As you know, sending money to Africa or sending money from Africa is very, very expensive. As MTN, we have started disrupting that.
We have so many corridors that we have today, most of the MTOs today, money transfer operators, are able to send money to our wallets directly. That simplifies the life of people. Also, we are able to send money from one country to another. It's like you are sending money locally, the same experience, that is very powerful. Last year, we processed more than $2.4 billion as remittance transaction value, we have not addressed the two markets where we have the biggest potential, Nigeria and South Africa. We didn't have the PSB in South Africa. Nigeria, we didn't have the license to operate, all those came now, and we are working on really unlocking that potential.
With that, we think that we'll become the biggest remittance player in term of transaction process by end of 2025. Insurtech. You all know that we partnered with Sanlam for aYo, and it is very powerful because the assets we have, I talked about them. We have payment, we have distribution, and Sanlam has also set up powerful product, insurance product and services. Those together will help us really to become the biggest Insurtech platform in Africa. We already have 4.3 million active policies, but we think that in the coming years, we'll become the largest Insurtech business in Africa leveraging this partnership. If you remember well, last year, two years ago, I started my presentation with Kafui. Kafui is a Ghanaian lady who lives in Takoradi and does everything with mobile money.
Kafui was a concept two years ago. Now it is a reality. Personally, I was in Rwanda six months ago. I met a lady, and I was very happy because she was selling tomato in the market, and she was explaining that she used MoMo Cash to take a loan every day to buy tomatoes that she would sell the whole day. After that, she reimburse and do it, then she started saving, and now she has her own capital. She is paying school fees for her kids. She is getting food for the family, just starting with us, using our lending offer, which is MoMo Cash, and using MoMo Pay to accept payment and leveraging. You have many Kafuis in Africa that we have enabled. If we are proud of something, it is that, because our own purpose is that.
We wake up every day to really make sure that we give back Africans their dignity. How you can give to someone dignity is to help that person to become financially independent and to be able to live by himself, and it is what we are doing, and it is why every day we are doing what we are doing. Now I'm going to hand over to Eli. Before that, I think we have a video. Oh, we are not showing it anymore. I talked about it, and we'll share it with you. It is talking about the power of Open API, but we'll share it with you. I will hand over to Eli, who will come to talk you to take you through about Nigeria.
After that, Kunle will come and unpack the financial framework for fintech. I will come later for to close. We'll go to questions.
Thank you, Serigne, I'm sure we are all excited about the fintech story for MTN. I will spend probably the next 10 minutes to unpack the opportunities, you know, that exist in our market, Africa's most populous nation, which is Nigeria. A lot has been said already, you know, about the opportunities in Nigeria, I believe by extension, a lot of our Ambition 2025 also hinges on the success of Nigeria. Therefore, we are poised and very determined to make sure that we deliver on our commitments in Nigeria. That said, I mean, we all know Nigeria is one of the largest economies in our footprints, you know, the fintech market there remains largely under-penetrated.
Those opportunities we see comes in the form of the number of the adult population. We do have 109 million with only 50 million bank accounts, therefore, we see the opportunity there, you know, to unlock the potential, and like Serigne Dioum just talked about, to give financial freedom to Nigerians and Africans for that matter. We have also seen that in that same market, we do have a number of opportunities around digitizing our financial transactions. 96% of transactions are still in cash, and in terms of our digital payment penetration, it sits at 30%. Therefore, that opportunity, in terms of our strength in that market, positions us actually to transform the market from cash to digital payments in Nigeria.
It's also important to highlight the fact that, you know, when Serigne Dioum was talking about the remittance opportunity in Africa, Nigeria came up, and we actually estimate that by 2025, in terms of inbound remittance, which Nigeria currently is the biggest, we project to receive over $23 billion in terms of inward remittances by 2025. That gives a lot of opportunities in that particular vertical, the remittance vertical. Quite apart from that, is also the opportunities we have in terms of trading within that regional environment between Nigeria and Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, and all the opportunities that exist in that particular regional remittances.
There's been a lot of talk about the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, the PAPSS, you know, driving a lot of opportunities within that space. We believe that we have what it takes to support that regional integration to drive regional remittances as well in Nigeria. The other thing I want to talk about is in the area of insurance, and today, we do have only 3% penetration in Nigeria. Also, in terms of loans, only 4% of Nigeria Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises have access to loans. That gives us also a huge opportunity in terms of our insurance or Insurtech and BankTech opportunity in Nigeria.
Last but not the least, a lot of the work we are doing today in Nigeria is changing our strategy also, from our initial rollout and from, and I'll come to a bit of that. We started as an agency operation. Now we are focusing a lot with PSB on wallets. With the wallets also is the opportunity that it gives us, you know, to unlock the opportunities in payments and e-commerce, and therefore, that's also another big area for us when it comes to the Nigeria business. Now, in terms of our Ambition 2025 execution, we've made a lot of progress towards that. Starting from, you know, our initial license, which is the super agent license in 2019. We have made a lot of progress with that.
In that year when we launched, within by the end of 2020, we had 100,000 agents across Nigeria. Fast-forward to 2023 today, we have more than doubled, you know, the number of agent network that we have. We have now over 260,000 agent points that are across, you know, the length and breadth of Nigeria, providing access to, you know, our customers in terms of access to our fintech products and services. Therefore, that agency model that we started with has given us a lot of leverage. Otherwise, we would have had to now start building our agent network.
In that light, we are actually working and have received, you know, the approval to merge the two businesses and leverage the opportunities that we get from both the agency business, which is the YDFS operation, and then the MoMo PSB operation. With that leverage, we can now, you know, expand quickly our agent network, and with that, we actually are looking towards going past the 500,000 in terms of our agent network, and hope that that will further strengthen, you know, our presence in the Nigerian market. In terms of the wallet transition that we have done, we have also seen some growth coming through.
Like I mentioned, when we rolled out the super agent business, mostly what we tried to do was over-the-counter transactions because we didn't have the license to open wallets. With MoMo PSB, we now have the opportunity to open wallets, and therefore, the strategy now is to focus on expanding our wallet ecosystem, and that we are beginning to see traction. From a closing of 2 million at the end of 2022, we have closed the first quarter of this year with 3.2 million wallet subscribers. In terms of our OTC, a bit of that has also been impacted by the strategy as well as the cash scarcity that we had to deal with in the first quarter of 2023 in Nigeria.
Therefore, people really didn't have access to cash, which was one of the key drivers of our OTC operation, and therefore, we had to work with a much smaller OTC numbers, quite apart from the fact that we've also, by strategy, moved on to our wallet going forward. So, for us, we believe that we have what it takes and well-placed to become the biggest FinCo with the largest distribution network and customer base by 2025. We have also talked about agent network, which will be expanding significantly by that time. In terms of customers, we expect that we should be on the upper side of 30 million, heading into 40 million customers by 2025.
That will give us the opportunity to actually deliver the services that we want to deliver to our customer base in Nigeria. It will also allow us to ensure that we are providing all the various, you know, support to the other parties that are part of the fintech ecosystem. We believe that our success should not be just us as a fintech, MTN fintech, but our success will also extend to other players within the ecosystem, so that we can expand the ecosystem better and deliver the right level of service to our customers. In conclusion, I want to say that a lot has been said about the Nigeria opportunity.
The best part of last year, like Serigne mentioned, we used it to actually improve on our controls, make sure that we've, you know, provided the right processes and systems to support the accelerated growth that we envisage. The best part of this year also, we have done a lot of work around an accelerated plan that will begin to see the acceleration that we expect to see in Nigeria in the second half of the year. That will come with a lot of investment in customer education. A lot of training of our agent network and equipping them with the tools that would, you know, support the kind of service acceleration that we want in Nigeria.
There's also the conversation around partnership, because we believe partnership is also part of, you know, the strategy to expand quickly in that space. Because the license itself, you know, requires us to partner in certain areas. For instance, our loan portfolio cannot be delivered without partnership with financial service providers. That partnership itself exists. In terms of even reaching the wider Nigeria financial ecosystem, we needed to also partner and integrate with the NIBSS, which is the Nigeria Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems. Those are part of the partnerships that we need, you know, to expand the ecosystem, and so that will also be part of the work.
Overall, we believe that, these, you know, interventions and the investments that I've talked about as part of our accelerated plan, will drive the business in Nigeria and help us to execute and deliver on our Ambition 2025. That said, I would want to invite, Kunle, to come and share the financial framework that would support, these, executions. Thank you.
Thank you, Eli. Good afternoon, everyone. My full name is Adekunle Awobodu. Generally, my colleagues refer to, t hey refer to me as Kunle. For those that do not know, call me Kunle. I previously had the CFO roles in MTN Nigeria and in MTN Irancell. The objective that I have today really is to briefly unpack the financial framework of the FinTech business. I'll also explain the way we see the expected evolution of the business. How do we see revenue and how do we see operating margins, right? Before I talk about the future, let's take a quick glance at the past. We've historically, I'll tell you something about the past in a minute. We've always delivered very strong performance across our FinTech business, right?
Late 2021, the whole of 2022, we did face several regulatory headwinds. We had competitive pressures in some of our markets. There were fiscal challenges, E-levy introduction in Ghana. There were some tax and fiscal measures in Benin, in Cameroon. Despite all of that, we've delivered revenue growth of 20% per annum on a compounded basis. On the back of that, was the fact that we keep increasing the penetration of our GSM base, which sort of give us the solid foundation that we need, while we keep growing the wallet business. The wallet business is growing at more than 80% per annum on a CAGR basis. What is more important, though, is the fact that payment and e-commerce is growing at over 50% since 2019. Again, remittance is over 35%.
Like I promised my colleague, that number is actually close to 39%. Bank tech, importantly, including airtime advance, has been growing at 20% per annum. We shift to the right of the slide, you'll see how we look at our revenue pie, right? As at the end of 2022, 55% of our revenue is still coming from basic services, while 45% is coming from advanced services. This is important, right? Our ambition really is to change the structure of this pie. We have to keep shifting this pie towards advanced services without, and still able to sustain our wallet businesses. That is the past. Before I go to the future, to my framework, I think I know I'm doing time, but I want to tell a story. I sat down listening to Karl and Modupe today.
They put up a slide, true to revenue. What I remembered was. Traditionally, we have a business cycle where we come to Group, to come and present revenue, our budget for the year. Group execs are very tough. Rightfully so. That's their job. I don't remember whether it was time of my stay was 2018, 2019, in that period. I can remember being in a car with Freddy, Raul. I don't remember whether it was myself or somebody else. We were debating, "What should we do?" We know they're going to push back. Traditionally, will not accept our budget. We said, "You know what? We're gonna go with an ambition. We're gonna go with an aspiratory budget." At that time, Nigeria was facing a couple of headwinds, where we had regulatory penalties, right?
The naira just devalued. We are planning to do listing by introduction, IPO. We said, you know, we're going to put a budget down. That is, they can't push back. They will tell us we are crazy. We are aspiring for NGN 1 trillion cap. NGN 1 trillion. I think the number is actually NGN 1 trillion, 20 million, right? Exactly. You got the number. I think the reason I'm telling this story was that as we were looking at the number, my CMO panicked and says, "I guess you must be crazy. There are so many headwinds. Why are we going to do this?" I can remember telling Freddy to say, "You know, one thing I can remember is that you've got to dream. When you dream, you will ponder.
When you ponder, you will act, and when you act, it will become a reality. Let's put it down," right? I'm telling this story because I sat down today, and current multiples are showing ZAR 2 trillion, right? This has completely blown my imagination. Well done. Well done to imagination. Well done to you. Well done. I want to say thank you, actually, for getting us there, right? Well done, right? By the way, that budget was not accepted. James wanted ZAR 30 million more. I'll tell you one more story, right? Every time I meet people, and we're talking about MTN ambitions, what I keep telling them is, I keep coming up with one quote, Thomas Jefferson. He says, although I'm an accountant, right? As an accountant, I'm trained to be conservative, right? I'm trained to record the past.
Just tell you, this is what we've done and all of that. What comes to my mind every time I look at our business, has always been, you know, that famous timeless quote, "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." I don't want us to dwell on the past, I'm going to show you the future, right? I, we, the team, we believe that the future offers us a lot of opportunities for not only investing and increasing financial inclusion. He talked about it. We think we can impact lives in Africa. We also believe that we can do it in a sustainable, socially responsible way, and we have a lot of harvestable opportunities for creating bigger shareholder value, right? That is the dream. We've seen it done before. We want to put it on the table again.
There are a couple of things we have to do to fulfill that, but when I present the fintech financial framework, there are a couple of growth metrics that I just want to highlight. The first one is revenue growth. Yes, in 2020, 2021, we put on the table 20% of group service revenue. I think Ralph answered the question today. We know where we are. We know we're halfway there. We talked about it. That's why I talked about let's look at the promises of the future, right? 20% of group service revenue is still our target. We want to put there. The way I see it, he did explain it. The way I see it is simple. By putting that on the table, there is a numerator, there is a denominator.
When this was third, there was a denominator. If we keep lifting the denominator, and we keep lifting the numerator, and we don't get this number, I still think it's a win for our shareholders, because we lift both, and we put an aspirational number on the table. To really deliver this, we have to rely on our ecosystem, and the key ecosystem we have to rely on is we have to keep pushing our active subscriber base, right? Our network of agents is important. Those are the underlying metrics that we have to use to get to that service revenue. Again, what is important is the fact that we have to keep growing our affiliates, our merchant affiliates, right? Once we do all of that, importantly for us, we have to accelerate the adoption of advanced services.
I'll move to margin expansion. I know there's a lot of questions. Ralph and Tsholo tells me that when they go on roadshow, there's a lot of question about expansion. We'll deal with it quickly. Our estimate at this point is that we will be mid-30s on a standalone basis. Let me explain standalone quickly. When I use the word standalone, I'm looking at fintech business itself, standing alone itself. That number will include revenues that are coming from the GSM business, that they are paying for recharges, the commission that the fintech business is earning, it will be included in that calculation. Also, importantly, is the fact that as we do the separation exercise, we're beginning to also make sure that the transactions between the two parties are being done at arm's length basis. It also includes cost of USSD, cost of SMS.
It also includes if there are shared services between the GSM business, both at the OpCo level and at group level. It is all-inclusive costs that we are talking about there. That number is also, include the fact that in some of our countries where we really want to scale, we have to do some investment at the beginning. We have to do investment to push our distribution network. We have to put investment to push our acquisition. It's mid-30s. We believe that that number will keep rising as we implement our priorities. There's also some focus on the cost efficiencies. I'll talk about that when I get to the next slide. We keep talking about our value-based capital allocation philosophy. It's a low capital intensity business.
Our estimate is that this is going to be about 2%-4% of our revenue. The investment really are geared towards, we want to continually transform the business, transform our technology, our platforms. We want to increase automation. There's a lot of focus on automation of our processes, and we're also, importantly, we want to improve our data mining capabilities. Those are the places we are going to push our CapEx into. A combination of the fact that we're targeting a very ambitious percentage of growth in revenue. The fact that we had a plan, we have a model to expand that margin and the low CapEx results in an attractive free cash flow. For those that will pick it up, below this slide, I do not have capital allocation priorities. I have operational priorities.
It's not that CapEx is not important, but what we actually need to do is to deliver, is to execute. That's why we've got to execute our strategy, and that's why this slide, lower part of this slide, is focusing on operational priorities. What do we want to do? We want to increase penetration of our GSM base, right? We have to keep aggressively expanding that agent and merchant network. Important. Once we do all of that, we're able to shift our activities and our revenue, our transactions towards advanced services, and we can then penetrate that fully. I will explain the next model why this is important, right? The last point I have there is that we must succeed in Nigeria, and we have to make progress in Nigeria for all of this to work. Okay? Structure separation.
That's work I've been working on for over a year. The structure of the business, in my view, is currently already, and it's also helping us to improve focus, operational agility. We are now better positioned to proactively manage regulatory engagement, right. As well as the fact that we want to make sure that there's fair value resource allocation between the telco business and the GSM business, right. I have operational excellence. We have to focus on data, harvest our data. We have to be data, tech, and technology driven. We have to prioritize our growth. We've got to focus and execute. Everything I tell Serigne is, "We've got to execute. We've got to execute." Our processes, we have opportunity now that we have separated, that we have to focus on automation of our processes.
Let's start with my processes in finance. I have to give them financial system. We've got to make sure that we get our numbers on time. This give us an opportunity for us to now optimize our unit economics as we go forward. I have on the right side, last one is our strategic partnership. This is important. This will enable us to accelerate some of our verticals. We keep looking at that. Partnership, where we can gain capacity quickly, where we can get knowledge, where we can use partnership capital, we'll do that. We will also have to look for inorganic growth. If we need to close any gap on that ambition, 20% of growth side, we will need to look for organic growth opportunities there.
My next slide really is target that I call it Fintech Growth Model. I'll quickly explain it. The base of everything we want to do is to keep pushing the velocity of the activities on our network. We have to keep pushing it. We've done that in the past, but we have to really accelerate that. We've already delivered active users at a CAGR growth of 25% in 2019. Our agent has been growing at 35%, greater than that. We've just been exploding, pushing, and scaling our merchant network. It's over 90%. What does that do, right? What it's done so far is to allow us to grow revenue of basic services at more than 18% per annum. I mean, I'm now showing you a little bit, if you want to model our numbers.
Our drivers in that area are activities like withdrawal, it's what we call cash out, transfers, P2P transfers. Then we have the non-chargeable deposit. That is important because that is the beginning, where we bring everything to the ecosystem, right? That is important. We have to keep scaling that as well. The last part of that is the fact that from a margin point of view, from a margin point of view, the cost here is lower. The margin here is lower. The cost is more because of distribution costs, channel costs, and the cost of transaction itself pushes the margin here lower. What we have to do is to keep shifting our activities towards the right, towards advanced services. As we shift that towards the right, We've already delivered growth of 25% per annum.
We'll keep pushing our payment services activities, lending. We have to keep lending transactions, remittance transactions, we have to keep pushing that. The important message here is that advanced services margins are higher than basic services. I reckon they're higher between 50%-90% higher than lower than lowest. This is key for us to shift across to advanced services. We've got opportunity on our cost intensity. We'll keep pushing our app penetration. That will help us lower transaction costs. We have now visibility of our costs, so we have opportunity to optimize the costs. That is there. Our capacity intensity, like I said before, is 2%-4%. If you just add all of that up, it gives you an attractive free cash flow economics. Last slide that I have, key takeaway.
The foundation now for us is the fact that we are now separate companies between the GSM. The GSM is still where we'll get our synergy. The fact that we have opportunity, we have now separated, give us a bigger foundation to really go after our priorities. Key takeaway for me is our focus will be on we increase penetration, we have to drive our customer base, we have to keep expanding wallet in market, in our existing market. We have to scale up in Nigeria, I will not forget South Africa. We've got to make progress in South Africa. Yeah. Our penetration is important because that allows us to shift transaction costs a little bit from the channel costs that are more expensive.
We will grow advanced services, and I talk about we will keep looking for opportunities to leverage partnership. Thank you. Serigne, thank you for listening to me. Can I please have another person?
Thank you, Kunle. I have three more slides. I'm not sure that. Let me use the mic. Yes. I think it is very important for me to show really the team behind what we are doing. Why it is important is that most of the time you see me, today you were able to see Kunle, to see Eli, but I can tell to you that the rest are more brilliant than us, and they are more passionated than us, and they understand the fintech business really. We have a team and different type of skills and people, they complement themselves. Kunle today was a dreamer, but most of the time when we dream, he bring us to reality.
Really, you know, we have people coming from Cedric, working in this since long time, more than almost 15 years. Hermann is new, but he come with a very big, good background in term of technology. Riaan, Chief Risk Officer, very seasoned person. We can sleep with them that compliance will always be right. You have Nikiwe, legal. You have new HR person, Perece. We have Mudassar, who is the CEO of one of the biggest lending micro bank in Pakistan, who will be joining us. We are making sure that we have the right team to be successful. On top of that, you have Ralph and Tsholo, who are giving to us the money and challenging us as well, which is very important.
Really, the message I wanted you to understand is that we have the team to really execute and deliver what we are telling to you here, and we have the right support also from MTN. The key takeaways. I think we all saw that the potential for fintech in Africa is huge. The second one is that we are well positioned as MTN to seize that opportunity. We will deliver revenue growth. We'll expand our margins by implementing the advanced services, as Kunle said. We will be successful in Nigeria. We will be continuing to be more successful in other countries, and we will make South Africa to work. Also, the last thing is that I will keep saying it, we have the right people to deliver this and to be successful. Thank you very much.
Thanks to Serigne. Eli and Kunle, please join us real quickly, just so that we can field some final questions on the fintech side. I'm pretty sure the investors are quite interested in some of the dreaming that you've been doing here, Kunle. Any questions from the floor? Yes, sir. Let me start with the gentleman here. Okay, also the gentleman there. You can go ahead, sir. I'll come back to you, sir.
Vic from RMB Morgan Stanley. Your red competitor, basically, gave us the take rate in Nigeria at 0.2%, which is much lower than, what you probably get in other parts of the continent. I just wanted to know, I mean, I think is the adoption rate as much better potentially in Nigeria, that it'll cover up for the lower take rates that you potentially could have in Nigeria?
Okay, let's take one more. Look at me, ma'am. Here. There we go.
Thank you. Jaynesh from Mazi. Two questions, if I may. One is: when are you getting your own banking license and doing lending yourselves? Two, as an OTT, I mean, think like an OTT, operate like an OTT, is there scope for, you know, MoMo in other markets where MTN, you know, is not a player?
Okay, let's take those two for now. Serigne, how do you know?
Yes, maybe, we'll let Eli start the answer on Nigeria.
Okay.
All right. Thank you for the question. Maybe just to start from the second question. Yes, the opportunity to do OTT exists for us in other markets. In Nigeria, it's part of the strategy, and soon we'll be onboarding, you know, customers on other networks. In terms of the opportunity and the size of what we believe is possible in Nigeria, we've highlighted it sufficiently. What we believe we need to do, we are putting together in terms of our strategy and plan. What we need to do to sustain that growth, we have done over the past one year in making sure the control environment has been well established.
Therefore, on our part, what is left to do now is the execution of the plan and to make sure that we can take as much of that market as we find as opportunities today. Yes, the market may be looking slow today, but it is because we are yet to take off with the accelerated plan that I talked about. With that accelerated plan, we should be able to see the kind of growth that we are talking about in terms of our Ambition 2025. Therefore, in the next one year, probably when we come back here, the story will be better told in terms of where we are, in terms of what we've been able to achieve in the next 12 months. Thank you.
Maybe just to add on that, the take rate in Nigeria is one of the lowest across our markets today, which is normal, because there is a journey when you launch mobile money in a country, people will more start by topping up, buying airtime, and that doesn't have a big, you know, revenue. The more you go, then the more people will send money, people will start paying bill, the advanced services will be coming. What I will say is that in Nigeria, the evolution of the take rate will be faster, because before we used to launch, wait for five years, four years to launch more services, but in Nigeria, we are launching merchant payment at the same time a lot, so you will see the evolution quicker.
In term of, are we will we be doing OTT in markets where we are not? I will be talking on behalf of Ralph and Karl. They can correct me. It is within our ambition. If we see opportunities in markets where we think that the potential for fintech is high, we are thinking about entering those markets within fintech to start or only for as a fintech player. Yes, we have that ambition.
There's a question about banking license?
Yes, banking license for lending, I think as MTN, we have an evolutive approach. When we started lending back in 2014, we didn't, a ll we knew was that there was a big potential of lending. We scanned the market, and we identify partners who could help us to do lending with us, and we used to be just a distribution network. After five, six years, we understood better, and we understand now better the lending business, and we decided to do more. Today, When I talked about MoMo advance, agent advance, merchant advance, we are doing ourself, the technology, the scoring, and everything. All we are doing now is that we are leveraging on banking partners for their licenses and their funding.
And we do believe that after a few years now, if the opportunity comes, and we will be tempted to use our balance sheet, and also where we see the opportunity, we'll be tempted also to apply for license. The right license may not be a banking license. If you look at Uganda, for example, you have a lending license that you can get easier, and also your commitment in term of compliance and those things are lower. We may start with that. As I would like to remind to everyone, as MTN, our fintech business, we are positioning ourself as a platform.
Platform means that we want to make sure that we are open to everyone to be able to work with us, to get access to our large customer base, and also to bring some innovative product and services. I would like also to emphasize on something, which is how we partner with banks. We do not see banks as, you know, competitors. We see banks as partners, and as long as it will be possible for us to partner with banks, leveraging their assets, we will do that. Today, we've most of the banks, we partner with them, we have a framework, and it is working quite well. Thank you.
Let's take one more round. Yes, sir.
Thank you. It's Mayur again from [MBFA]. I just want to follow up on Vicki's question, right, on the take rate. I mean, even after you scale up the business and the merchants are onboarded, It looks like the potential for the ARPU per customer to be lower in the Nigerian market than your other markets. The reason I'm saying is this: you know, if you look at the pyramid of consumers, you have this top end that's quite a lucrative market, but all the OTT players are going for that.
The bottom end is the, is by definition, the poorer market, and that's where your competitive advantage is strong because you have distribution reach way into that market. The top-end market is where all the advanced services might grow and might do well. I just want to hear your thoughts as to why you think that this might be more successful than maybe on paper or to my simple mind, it seems.
What I would say is that, Nigeria, how you describe it, is not different from other markets. If you look at our other markets, let us take Ghana. All high-value customers, they do have bank accounts, and they're using banks to transact. The customers, those high-value customers, surprisingly, are early adopters for mobile money, first of all. Secondly, the way it works is that those high values are the ones who are putting the money into the ecosystem. You have your mother, you have your aunties, your family, and you are getting money you are sending to them because they need something. Those people will use the money to transact and to do others. We've seen also some people who were banked and who use MoMo Cash, which is our lending offer, to borrow money.
When you ask to them, they said it is commodity. Sometimes I'm outside, I don't want to go to an ATM, someone needs money, ask me, I borrow the money, and then after, I will pay quickly. This is really surprisingly, the high-value customers are mobile money customers. Also, what I would like to think about also is the fact that, you know, the beauty of mobile money is that we are not inventing new transactions. We are digitalizing cash. Remember, we are fighting against cash. Someone, maybe you tag him as a poor, as low-value customer, but that person is transacting a lot every day. By digitalizing that money, bringing it into the digital ecosystem, that customer may be the one giving you more output. As I said also earlier, because of that, we want to transact.
If someone pays a customer who is buying something, he's paying, we don't get money from that customer, but the merchant will pay to us. That means that indirectly, he's generating money to us.
All right.
Maybe just one addition to Serigne's submission. There's also the middle group of artisans and small service providers as well, who provide these services and get paid by the people on the upper side of the pyramid. You have a plumber who comes to work for you, the easier way to pay that person will be through mobile money, because that's the easiest way you can reach that person. You may also have someone who may repair your vehicle, a mechanic. Those are, you know, the opportunities that we bring in terms of those who are higher up the pyramid, participating because they interact with people from the mid to bottom, and also are able to leverage that opportunity. Thank you.
The CEO of Nigeria would like to add.
Without a doubt, these are the experts on mobile money. I do have some understanding of Nigeria. We always talk about the underestimation of the informal economy in Nigeria, I'm going to give you a very visual example of what this is. You drive through Abuja, Nigeria, being its chaotic nature, you're driving to the airport you see a herdsman herding 500 cows down the street, he's crossing the road, it blocks traffic. That's almost $1 million worth of money. Those guys are transacting in cash, those are the guys we're going for. The traders in Kano, in Katsina, go to the market every day come back with $20 million, $30 million, $40 million that they keep in their houses. They appear like the bottom of the pyramid.
They're not banked today, but they're incredibly valuable. We've positioned mobile money in Nigeria as better than cash and want to capture all of those people. Thank you.
All right.
Thank you, Karl. Thank you.
On that note, thank you and well done. All right. Oops! Okay. Lots of exciting things to look forward to. Another round of applause for Serigne, Eli, and Kunle. We've come to the end of the day. Can I have a microphone, please? In fact, can you pass it on to Ralph? There you go. We've come to the end of the day, ladies and gents, which is, in fact, also not just the end of the day, the end of the two-day Capital Markets Day. All right? Thank you so much for joining us now in 2023. It's been my great pleasure to host you for the past two days, and it's been a great pleasure also to be exposed to all the good work that's happening in this Pan-African pioneer that is MTN Group.
Thank you so much for your attention. Just one or two announcements I wanna make. First of all, please send your feedback. You will get an email asking you for your feedback, If you do have any feedback today, if you're anything like me and you wanna get it all done now, the email to send any feedback you might have is investor.relations@mtn.com, investor.relations@mtn.com. Any feedback, good, bad, ugly, doesn't matter, anything that will help us improve the experience for next year. I'm also been informed that we have catered for some cocktails. So if you want to grab a beer, plus a wine before you make your way, you're more than welcome to join us in the area where we were having lunch.
From me, it is goodbye, and I'm now gonna hand over to the Group President and CEO, Ralph, to say some final words.
Andile, thanks very much, really want to say a few concluding remarks because I know several of our investors need to catch flights and be on their way. I mean, firstly, to thank all of you for accepting a two-day, and I know that some of you, it's a three-day invitation, because we do have a sidebar, I understand, tomorrow on South Africa, Nigeria, and the Fintech business. It's being done by JP Morgan, so I think some of you staying for three days for what we had billed as a one-day event. For us, that's a positive that people are engaged in our investment case. Thato said, I must say something funny at the end just to make sure people are not sleeping. I don't know, he gave me a few.
He said, it's called fun facts. We've had over 1,000, you know, logins into the last two days. Quite a lot of it, not just on the webcast, but YouTube. 80 people have uniquely come into Fourteenth Avenue for two days, or mostly for two days. That shows that there is an intense amount of interest. Minister Pravind Gordhan asked me yesterday, "Can you just estimate the capital in the room last night?" I asked one capital allocator, and they were in the trillions in terms of what they're managing. That's why we got to the ZAR 1.5 trillion . It must be at least ZAR 1.5 trillion .
You know, obviously, a lot of interest in terms of what the story is. As we've built it, what we're doing today is really the last two days, is to give you a sense the progress, how we've engaged the macro, and how we're moving forward with our strategy. Some nuances around, you know, how we are executing, particularly the story we reference around the balance sheets, how we're thinking about the ARP, how we're thinking about localizations, how we feel we can still de-lever without, you know, the IHS sell-down and the Nigeria further localization being a necessary part of the de-leveraging. We've delevered without fully executing that gives us, again, some flexibility and some ability also to be strategically patient around some of those investments.
you know, I mentioned IHS earlier on. We're still committed to the program of focusing on our capital allocation and giving us the financial freedom to come back to you as investors, 'cause we often get the question, you know, "Can you lift the dividend over time?" We say: We're investing in growth. Hopefully, we've, you know, we've covered that story about how we are navigating and, you know, dealing with some of the issues to Thato's framing, that we're really focused around the progress and the priorities and the prospects of the company. I trust that over the two days, you've, you know, you really got a sense.
You also got a sense of the team that is executing. I think the common denominator, I can say without fear of contradiction, is that, the team we have here are well-schooled in dealing with the challenges that come across our way. A lot of those challenges, we quickly turn into opportunity. Charles is an example of that. Today, we say load shedding, and, we have a sense that, you know, that must be negative for the equity story. Charles's point is, for sure, I'm going to reconfigure my network to look, quite different, and we've got to do this on a self-help basis. I need some capital investment.
As you heard from James yesterday, actually, if you think about it, you say, "Okay, I have these investments I need to make to make my network more resilient." 13,000 towers, a third of them with gen sets or with batteries, autonomy 6 - 8, as Charles would have said. That could also be an opportunity we could be talking to you about in a year or twos time. We didn't say it, James said it, that, you know, obviously, in South Africa, you know, there's these bookends around load shedding that we should think of. We see often challenge, and we say, "How do we turn that into opportunity?" I mean, I was interested to jump in the take rate discussion. I said I held myself back because I...
I said to, you know, to the team in one of our deep reviews, 'cause I do what the guys call the investigator office, an investigator mode. I say, "Why is our ARPU $1.27, when Airtel's $1.97 and M-Pesa's $2.3?" The guys start looking at that, and, you know, in that analysis, you just see an enormous amount of opportunity when you look at chargeable events, and how do you balance adoption and monetization? If you push adoption too quickly without thinking about where the curve of monetization comes, you're gonna build a platform that you can't make money off. If you push the monetization way too quickly, you don't get the scale effects, and I think this is where Karl came in with the example.
You know, the team here is a team that is really focused on saying: This is our home. These are our markets. We understand the challenges, but inside every challenge is an opportunity, and this is the team that is really focused on living this dream that we feel deeply and passionate about. That what we wanna do is drive digital and financial inclusion and give the people of Africa dignity, hope, and opportunity, 'cause that's what drives us in the morning. Otherwise, the work would be too hard. I hope you felt that quite deeply, because this is the real engine. It's not the PowerPoints and everything. It's, you know, this team that really wants to execute and deliver on our targets.
As I said, early on in my remarks, I hope that over the two days, you have a couple of takeaways. I won't go through them. These are, you know, for referencing. We truly believe that as we now move through the second half of Ambition 2025, near-term headwinds, for sure, we understand them. We're real and sober about them. Deep in there's opportunity. We're going through a down cycle. We're maintaining our CapEx. The resilient companies, over time, sustain investment through the cycle, in the upcycle and the downcycle. The winners generally do that, 'cause when you come to the other end, you'll be in a stronger position.
Karl often reminds me, he says, "Ralph," you know, we push him hard and say, "Listen, you've got to drop your CapEx intensity." He said, "I promise you, I'll give you your targets, because I'm seeing enormous opportunity." We're seeing the opportunity. We're very well arranged for the near-term challenges. We're very real about them, I hope over the two days, you get the sense that this is a team that is grounded and sober, are also deeply looking at the opportunities. The value unlock opportunities are real. Niel, for sure, you know, we would look to, you know, unlock the opportunities we see in fintech and fiber. You heard the story. RHS, as we said, previously, we're saying that allows us to de-lever.
It's not so much an issue, and we'll be able to kind of progress with our deleveraging. We have an upsized DMTN note program, 20-35. That's another quiver, you know, in our bow that we will use to drive deleveraging the 2024, 2026 bonds. Capital allocation, you know, when Tsholo and the team are successful, I think we'll come back to you and say the batting order has been reviewed. For now, it is as we've communicated, and we, being the custodian of the capital that you give us, we think this is the right way to manage the business and allocate the capital. As I said, you know, the team, to me, is what really makes the difference.
I have to lead this team, and you can well imagine the headaches I have when I go home, dealing with Jens and Karl, and Serigne, and everybody else. You know, it's like herding cats. At the end of the day, we get it done. We get it done. I'm sure some of you would like to be flies on the wall when we make decisions. It all looks, like, nice and tidy, but, boy, you know, these guys are giving me this gray beard. It's not the market, it's my own team. And on that basis, I wanted to start to thank them, because they're the real people that are executing. They're the 17,000 MTNers who are really behind the execution.
They're not in the room, but I know a lot of them are listening. That, I would believe, is the distinction of MTN and the culture that we have. I spoke a little bit about the values. I know not much. You won't put, you know, another ZAR 4 a share because of the fact that we've refreshed values. I believe it's worth a lot that we have the right people, with the right culture and building the foundation. Hopefully, you know, you will obviously all make your own assumptions, and that's the whole point about, you know, this day, is to give you a sense of how you think about the company. We think about it in a very positive sense. Obviously, finally, we're remaining committed to our medium-term guidance.
Often we get the question, "Oh, the headwinds are coming." As you heard from Karl Toriola, you know, we will get some headwinds on Nigeria because of FX devaluation and so forth, that we know will come in time, and we have a frame. There's an engine that is very powerful that, you know, over the cycle, you know, we'll hurdle some of these. We've got opportunity for revenue expansion. We've got opportunities for cost optimization and so forth. Being number one and number two gives you the ability to push that, and hence, you know, we're confirming our guidance.
We're confirming the ZAR 3.30 for FY 2023, because we believe that the cash generation engine, in reasonable stress scenario, base case, stress case, you know, we operate the business on base, stress, and shock. Every month, Dinara knows, we're asking her to reforecast continuously. "Show us how your year to go is looking, so that we can communicate responsibly to investors." The, the medium-term guidance, you know, we're confirming that it remains in tax as 3-5 years, ZAR 3.30 for next year, and obviously, is also confirmed. I also want to thank a person who is often not thanked too much, or two people who have been behind everything. When things work like this, you wonder what, you know what?
We also maybe want to thank Eskom, because we haven't felt any load shedding, because that's been one of our big concerns. I want to point out, Thato, he doesn't like to take much credit. He just gets things done, and I know you guys engage with him a lot. Nompilo and the team, they've been very instrumental in what you've seen today. To them and their teams, Andile, thank you so much again for being a MC. You know, I hope as you said, you're you use the MTN phone. You know, please keep. You know, we need Charles', Charles is aiming for 46 so, the more we use, I just want to thank you.
Again, for those who we cannot see, who are joining us via webcast, really want to appreciate the time. As we said, any questions that you have, ongoing, you know, please, you know, pass them to Thato. We will, you know, look to respond, and, you know, help us to think through some of the things we need to communicate with you at the half year. Thanks so much. Thank you for taking the time to travel here. Really, really appreciate your time, and we know that to spend two days is a lot of time in current capital markets. There's always stuff to read. Appreciate and hope you found the two days insightful, and a vindication of the investment case that we've put out there.
Thank you very much.