Good day to everybody, and thank you for joining us on this call to discuss the MTN Group's trading update for the period ended 30 March, 31 March 2024. My name is Thato Motlanthe. I'm, I look after group investor relations, and on the call with me, I've got Ralph Mupita, who's our Group CEO. We've also got Tsholofelo Molefe, our Group CFO, and also joining us on the call this afternoon is Charles Molapisi, who's the CEO of MTN South Africa, as well as Dineo Molefe, who's the CFO of MTN South Africa. So our trading update was published this morning on the JSE and is posted on our website on the Investor Relations page. I trust that you've had a chance to look at it this morning, along with the Q1 releases from our listed opcos.
These were published over the past couple of weeks, and hopefully you've been able to join their investor calls as well. For today's call, we'll present a bit of a focused overview of our Q1 performance, reiterating the key highlights before we open up for Q&A. The running order, as usual, will be Ralph kicking us off with an overview of the commercial performance as well as the key issues. Tsholofelo will follow up with an overview of the financial highlights, and then Ralph will come back to round up the key focus areas and the outlook. After that, we'll go into Q&A, and I would encourage you to enter your questions on the webcast platform, which I will read out at the end.
We scheduled for about an hour for this call, at which we'll wrap up, and then you can send me any additional questions which we aren't able to cover. On that note, let me hand over to Ralph for introductory comments.
Thank you, Thato, and a very good afternoon to you all, as well from myself and Tsholofelo. I trust everybody's keeping well. In terms of our Q1 trading update, we are encouraged to have delivered a resilient performance for the period in what continues to be a challenging macro backdrop. Before going into the trading update highlights, it's important to just touch on the environment we continue to navigate in the period. From a macroeconomic perspective, inflation and interest rates in some of our key markets remained elevated during Q1. It was encouraging to see the overall inflation trend improving. To give you a sense, the blended rate of inflation across our footprint averaged around 13.7% in Q1 2024, which favorably compares to 18.5% in Q1 2023, and 15.4% in Q4 2023.
We also saw local currencies under pressure, particularly the naira, which continued to devalue against the dollar during the period. You'll have seen from MTN Nigeria's reporting that the business there delivered strong underlying commercial momentum despite the financial impacts of the sharp devaluation of the naira. There were a number of other factors impacting us in the period, including the ongoing civil war in Sudan, which severely affected network availability and revenue generation in that market. Most of you will also be aware of the cable cuts that caused major disruptions and outages, especially in West Africa. In terms of regulatory issues, we have reported to you in the past about the impact of SIM registration regulations in a number of our markets, notably Nigeria and Ghana.
This mainly impacted our subscriber development during the period, but we do believe that we managed the impacts well and sustaining service revenue growth. Tsholofelo and I will cover three areas in our overview commentary this afternoon, to run as follows: firstly, the overall, performance highlights; a summary of the financial review, which Tsholofelo will cover. I will then come back at the end to conclude, with some priorities and outlook comments. So let me start, on our performance highlights, which, is topic one. We continued to invest in our networks, and we deployed ZAR 5.4 billion of CapEx ex-leases, reflecting an overall CapEx intensity of 11.8%.
We delivered overall service revenue growth of 11.1% in constant currency terms, with EBITDA up 3.9%, with the underlying margin down 2.5 percentage points to 38.1%. That's all in constant currency terms. In terms of our commercial progress, our subscriber base increased by 3 million to 288 million. As I mentioned, this was impacted by subscriber registration regulations in Ghana and Nigeria, as well as a decline in subscribers in Sudan amidst the ongoing conflict. Active data subscribers were up 7.8% to 149.2 million, supporting the increase in data traffic up in our networks. We are pleased with the continued strong demand for our services, which underpin our medium-term growth thesis.
In this regard, data traffic was up 36.2% year-on-year, 32.2, excluding the joint ventures. MTN South Africa put in another resilient Q1, given the pressures in that market, with service revenue up by 3% year-on-year. Within this mix, the data performance was impacted by initiatives implemented to recover legacy XtraTime data advance balances through data bundles, which slowed revenue development. They've now completed their network resilience plan and are positioned to manage load shedding, load shedding, and maintain good network availabilities up to stage 8. Subscribers increased by 3.3% to close at 37 million, while data traffic growth was up 42%. This includes a strong growth in FWA products as the business accelerated penetration in that market.
This is a particular area of focus in terms of MTN SA's pricing priorities, where there are some initiatives being implemented to enhance revenue yield. MTN Nigeria reported its results at the end of April. Under the circumstances, they delivered quite a solid underlying operating performance, given the sharp naira devaluation impacting the financial results. Data traffic, in particular, was quite robust and grew by 41%, which supported MTN Nigeria's strong underlying top-line performance. Constant currency service revenue for MTN Nigeria grew by about 32% in the quarter, which was once again ahead of local inflation. Within our markets portfolio, MTN Ghana put in another stellar performance. They reported, again, they reported at the end of April. But looking at their Q1, very strong service revenue growth of 32% in constant currency, with a strong contribution from data and fintech.
Their results were supported by pricing initiatives implemented in the market, especially for data. For Group Fintech, year-on-year transaction volumes and values grew by around 18 and 11% respectively, as we ramped up our focus on monetization. You would recall our comments from full year 2023 results, that this is a major priority for 2024. This is really to ensure that we balance the expansion of our ecosystem with revenue and cash flow growth. The initiatives in key markets include changes to, in B2B and C2B, activities, where we're pushing more transactions into merchant ecosystem for higher monetization. We have intensified bill collection initiatives, optimizing our pricing in order to improve take rates. In remittances, we are enhancing our model to enhance better pricing, especially in terms of rates charged to our partners.
We're also pursuing high yields and floats and improving how we manage our float monetization. Through initiatives like this, we are accelerating the growth in advanced services in line with our strategy. When you look at our performance, we grew advanced services by 63.3% year-on-year as we continue to evolve the revenue mix. The progress in fintech was underpinned by monthly active user growth of 6.2% to 65.5 million, and by 8.1 to 62.2. If you exclude OTC customers in Nigeria, you would have seen in our tables that we provided both metrics, and what you'll probably see going forward is a streamline towards the ex-OTC metric in line with our focus on active wallets.
We are encouraged by the growth in active merchants, up 14.1% to 2.2 million, supporting the growth in merchants payments of ZAR 4.7 billion, up 32.6% on prior year. So let me pause here and hand over to Tsholofelo for some color on our financial performance, and I'll come back with outlook and priorities as we conclude before we take Q&A.
Thank you very much, Ralph, and good afternoon to everyone joining us on the call this afternoon. I'd like to first talk about the financial overview for the Q1 results. First, just to reiterate, the resilient financial performance we have reported in light of the stiff headwinds impacting our business. As outlined by Ralph, our service revenue increased by 11.1% in constant currency terms, and, as highlighted, the conflict in Sudan had a significant impact on this performance. MTN Sudan revenue declined by 83% year-on-year, affected by mainly the lack of network availability. If we exclude MTN Sudan, our service revenue would have been up 13.3%, so quite a solid underlying performance.
If I unpack our EBITDA margin, this was affected by upward pressures on costs due to higher inflation and Forex depreciation, largely in Nigeria, the network resilience cost, as well as electricity tariff escalations we saw in MTN South Africa, and the escalation of costs arising from the conflict in Sudan. We mitigated these effects, however, through the execution of our expense efficiency program, in terms of which we realized about ZAR 430 million during this period. Overall, this enabled us to report group EBITDA growth of 3.9% in constant currency with a margin of 38.1%, however, lower by 2.5 percentage point compared to same period last year. Over the course of this year, we will accelerate the initiatives to realize further efficiencies and ensure that we meet our expense efficiency targets.
You'll recall that we have targeted savings of between ZAR 7 billion-ZAR 8 billion over the next three years. The focus on our financial resilience has been, and still remains, a key focus area for us. In this regard, we are very pleased to have maintained a group net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.5 times as at the end of March this year. This remains well within our loan covenant limit of 2.5 times. Our net interest cover from a group perspective is at 5.6 times, and also within the covenant threshold, although under pressure, under some pressure, given the near-term headwinds, especially the FX impact. It is important to note that we've engaged with our lenders, both at a group as well as Nigeria level.
We have secured the necessary accommodations from our lenders in relation to some of the potential impacts on our loan agreements arising from the major currency devaluations, we have reported on in Nigeria. Our holding company leverage expanded slightly to 1.7 times, which is above our midterm guidance to the market of 1.5 times, and which was anticipated, really, given the short-term pressures from FX impact, as well as lower cash upstreaming from the opcos, which is normally a softer quarter. We remain focused, however, on upstreaming efforts and anticipate this to improve in the coming quarters.
Overall, this will also support efforts to return holdco leverage back within guided range of 1.5 times over the medium term. In terms of our upstreaming, you would have seen from the results that we reported cash upstreaming of $708 million, received mainly from our opcos, largely in MTN South Africa. Again, you may recall that we do have a seasonality in the profile of our cash upstreaming, as I indicated, and we expect this to increase over the remainder of the year. In rounding up my comments, I would stress that we remain guided by our capital allocation framework that has really stood us in good stead.
We believe it remains relevant, even as we navigate the current volatility in our macro context and will enable us to continue to execute on our strategy. With that, I'll hand over back to Ralph.
Thanks very much, Tsholofelo. And just to echo the really resilient operational financial performance we've delivered, given the near-term headwinds, the strength and flexibility of our balance sheet gives us a lot of confidence about our ability to deliver on investment case as we navigate some of these near-term challenges. Just in terms of the outlook, let me outline a few key messages. Firstly, I think the first is to recognize the prevailing geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions will continue to impact our business in the near term from our expectations. That said, the fundamentals of our businesses are quite strong, and we are confident in our ability to continue to navigate the near-term uncertainties.
In South Africa, Charles and the team are doing work to accelerate growth and improve profitability, underpinned by its resilience plan, which has significantly improved the network availability. Several initiatives are underway and are being executed in MTN SA, including price ups in prepaid plans and other portfolios, as well as revision of data bundle portfolios. As we noted in our FY 2023 results, MTN SA is making investments into the device market to support its revenue acceleration initiatives, and we have cautioned that this will put some pressure, some near-term pressure, on EBITDA margin there. In the sense, you will have also seen that MTN SA has mutually agreed to unwind the PaaS agreement with IHS, and we're happy to take, you know, questions around the logic, you know, of that.
But very importantly, MTN SA remains very focused on delivering on the medium-term guidance for FY 2024 for both service revenue and EBITDA margin guidance. For MTN Nigeria, the key will be to resolve the negative equity position reported there. Their EGM and Q1 already highlighted the 5 key initiatives being implemented to achieve this, and without getting into details of it, they do merit some repeating. Firstly, continuing to pursue regulated tariff increases through engagement with the authorities, and these are ongoing. Driving margin recovery through accelerated top-line growth, with a focus on executing on the expense efficiency program. The third, optimizing CapEx deployments, targeting CapEx intensity in the upper single digits. Fourth, reducing US dollar exposure, with the focus on the MTN Nigeria's outstanding letters of credit obligations.
And the fifth, MTN Nigeria is considering strategic options to manage its tower lease portfolio. As we communicated with the release of MTN Nigeria's Q1 trading update, we have revised up our service revenue guidance to high 20s to low 30s. We've also communicated FY 2024 EBITDA margin guidance of 33%-35% on the assumption of FX average rates between 1,400 and 1,700, no tariff increase, and no successful outcome from the tower co contract renegotiation. Obviously, as any of those three variables move, you know, they would, you know, affect the margin guidance, you know, positively. Of course, MTN Ghana will continue to lead the focus within our markets portfolio on achieving operational excellence, which will help safeguard its margins and drive sustained bottom line growth in the medium term.
In our platforms, we will leverage partnerships to accelerate ecosystem growth and wrap up our commercial monetization. We'll also continue the work to bring in further minority investments, investors, into our platform. The commercial initiatives with Mastercard will ramp up in Q2, with sequential launches across markets through the remainder of the year. And then on CapEx, we have revised down our anticipated CapEx for 2024 to ZAR 28 billion-ZAR 33 billion. This was due to the reduction in expected spend by MTN Nigeria, as they announced a couple of weeks ago. I do want to, however, reiterate that we have a very well-invested network in Nigeria, excellent spectrum assets, and network headroom in Nigeria to take on the data traffic growth in the year ahead.
And we believe that we'll be able to maintain the strong network leadership position that we've had, you know, over several years. So in closing, we remain focused on our strategy execution to deliver on our medium-term guidance. This is guided by a robust capital allocation framework and anchored on the resilience and flexibility of our balance sheet. So let me stop there and hand over to Thato for Q&A. As was mentioned earlier, we have Charles and Dineo also in the room to help us, you know, answer some of your questions. Thato?
Yeah, thanks so much, Ralph. Thanks, Tsholofelo. Let's just jump straight into Q&A. There are quite a few of them. Let's just start with a question on Nigeria. Can you please provide some color on the progress regarding the renegotiation of the Nigerian USD leases and why this is taking time to execute?
... Yeah, just to start with that one, and I think we mentioned this, you know, quite clearly during the, you know, the results roadshow. You know, obviously, you know, there are a variety of variables that are very sensitive when you do this multi-year renegotiation. Firstly, is what exchange rate do you, you know, convert what is currently dollar-denominated, you know, use fees into naira? And that's one key variable that, you know, if you get it right- so if you get it wrong, I mean, you, you're kind of stuck with it for the period of the contract. So there's, you know, a lot of work going through that. The other is just on CPI escalations. You know, how do we frame the CPI escalations?
And then there are a few other terms, you know, that are, you know, being discussed. You know, where we've got to so far is, and I think we've made good progress, in particular on, looking towards movement from technology-based pricing towards space and power. So that side is not a big issue. So it's essentially really around, you know, the rate that is used to convert, what was previously, dollar-based use fees or currently dollar-based use fees to naira. The CPI rate, you know, understanding also the tower portfolios, there's actually three of them. There's the so-called IHS, there's a Helios portfolio, there's an INT portfolio, and all of those have, you know, various terms that are still being discussed, including, the lease tenure.
These discussions, you know, remain ongoing.
Thanks, Ralph. A couple of questions on Nigeria. Following the MTN Nigeria EGM, just to clarify, is there no holdco obligation to shore up support for opco balance sheet in any way? While the five-point plan may help the opco trade out of its negative equity position, what is the fallback plan if any of the initiatives do not result in the close, closing of the net equity balance by 2025?
Yeah, I mean, there's no holdco obligation, you know, to shore up, you know, the balance sheet, in terms of an equity capital injection. I think that's super clear. The CAMA rules require us to communicate the plan. And obviously, if we, you know, get a tariff increase, we were able to renegotiate an attractive new set of contracts with IHS. I mean, that obviously changed the picture, you know, pretty much in an instant. So there is a scenario which we say is the trade-out scenario, which is, you know, you continue to, you know, keep the current contracts as they are. They have different tenures. The big portfolio of towers has a tenure that goes up to 2029. That's the so-called INT portfolio.
So that's still got four and a half years to run. So there is a scenario where you just trade out and go into next year, and obviously the impacts of that would be you remain in negative equity. As Tsholofelo says, you know, you've got your accommodation from the funders, et cetera. On all kind of reasonable scenario assumptions, you'd come out the back end of next year, you know, towards a profit situation, given various assumptions about exchange rates and so forth. So that scenario, you know, remains one that is available for the company. But I think it's important to note that, you know, we're gonna remain agile and responsive to developments, whether they are on the tariff increase side or on progress with IHS on the contract renegotiations.
Just maybe another question on Nigeria CapEx before we move on to some essay questions. I think you did touch on it, but, please talk about the change in approach in Nigeria CapEx. At FY 2022 results, it seemed the approach was largely to maintain spend levels, especially considering your experience through the prior devaluation. What's the change since then, and how is this different this time? It doesn't look like your peers are pulling back on CapEx intensity in the near term.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's one peer who communicated less CapEx into the year with full-year results, and we'll comment about them. I mean, what we assessed, and I guess in these situations, you have to remain strategically agile. So what we assessed, you know, after full year was, you know, what is the headroom in the Nigerian network?
And, you know, what we had seen in the Nigerian network, and particularly given that we had secured 2 by 5 MHz at 2600, which was continuous to the balance of the 2600 we had, when we looked at that, and having done our spectrum planning, you know, Karl and team concluded that actually, without compromising network quality, and having, you know, a level of sustaining CapEx, you know, mostly going to be going to IT, and with some radio planning, we would actually be able to maintain the data growth that we've seen, you know, certainly in Q1. So you saw 40% traffic growth, supported by revenue growth that's into fifties. So the team felt that, that's...
They could continue, you know, to absorb that and have headroom to be able to take on the data traffic. So that was, you know, being responsive to, you know, the conditions as we saw them, you know, trading through February and into early March. I understand the point that says, you know, you can cut CapEx substantially, but I think, you know, as I said, we've invested ahead of demand in Nigeria. We've got headroom in 5G. We're trying to move a lot more traffic towards 5G. And particularly on FWA and our home solutions, we're trying to use more of that 3500 MHz spectrum, over 100 MHz of that. And then, as I said, the 2600 portfolio is helping us carry, you know, quite a lot of traffic.
We feel comfortable that there is no kind of competitive impairment by taking on this strategy.
Thanks, Ralph. Maybe some questions on SA. What is the effect of price increase MTN SA is looking to price up for prepaid? When will this start? And any color on initial subscriber response we are seeing in ARPU uplift. Charles?
Yeah. Thanks, Thato. The prices, maybe just to give you a bit of a framework, I mean, we delivered the postpaid pricing in February. The first time we do that, there was about an 8.6% tariff increase, with a 4.3% effective rate. On prepaid, I just want to maybe explain that prepaid is done maybe on multiple layers. So I'll do prepaid on CVM. I've also doing prepaid on open market. CVM, we are done. I think mostly all our top 20, you know, bundles, we have completed that. The effective rate differs depending on the bundle profile, so we know it vary depending on the size of the bundle and the target the market that was we were targeting.
And then on open market, most of those prices have not started yet. They'll go in the market in the month of May. There's a bit of a lag effect in terms of those pricing, because there are a lot of channels. There's bank integration. We know we must roll them out into the channel all together. So that will come through, I think, mainly in May. But there's a comprehensive pricing, you know, strategy across all the segments, whether it's wholesale, enterprise, FWA, and then postpaid and prepaid. Thanks.
Thanks, Charles. And then maybe just carrying on, postpaid ARPU decline is accelerating quarter-on-quarter. Any color on what is driving this and the outlook for FY 2024?
Yeah, no. Our, our expectation is that postpaid will see, will see some recovery. I think the dilution largely is also just the profile of the customers that we are onboarding on postpaid. So that's mainly that. But I think we expect that as we go into Q2 and then Q3, then, the postpaid recovery will come through. We did also, you know, mention that, postpaid, was affected by the cleanup that we did on the base. That cleanup was done in Q4 2023. So we can expect that the comparables will be a little bit lopsided for a while, but will come through the wash, as we go into quarter four.
A couple more. If EBITDA margin in South Africa, what would the margin have been, had you not front-loaded device investment? And when should we expect to see the benefit in terms of revenue acceleration initiatives from this?
Yeah, I'll deal with the revenue profile, and then, you know, we'll deal with the margin. First of all, just to explain the strategy, I mean, you know, just want to be clear that in terms of the envelope that we intend to spend on devices, that is pretty much under control. The front-loading was a strategic decision that we are taking to say, "Let's get the customers in," as opposed to actually delaying you know, getting the customers on board later in the year. Let's pull them through early in the year, let's say Q1 and maybe Q2. That allows us to load the sales revenue profile. So still early, but we're seeing a nice upside coming through. But I think we'll start to see a much more clearer picture as those devices get into the market.
Remember, there's a bit of a lag effect, where once a device is bought and get into the market. So we expect to see some form of upside going forward. And then obviously, we'll reassess and try to bring the whole margin under control, you know?
So the device acceleration had a 0.6 percentage point impact on the reported margin, so we would have reported 35.5%.
Thanks, both. If we move on to question on pricing. So please, can you update us on the price up initiatives across Nigeria and Ghana? And have you observed cash from Ghana in the quarter? And then just linked to that towards same, same person asking, can you give us color on the detail on the products that you'll roll out in conjunction with Mastercard as on fintech side?
Yeah. Maybe just take the pricing in Ghana and Nigeria. I mean, Ghana, I think there's been now a kind of a rhythm and a pattern that we do get price increases, particularly on data. Actually as a function of our SMP regulatory status, where we can't price below you know the competitors, and that's supported you know top line and margin growth in Ghana. So that's, that is actually driven by you know the SMP regulations that are in place there. I mean, in Nigeria, I think one sort of think about this in two cores. I mean, we are talking about a data and voice tariff increase just to lift at an industry level.
As many of you have read that, certainly on voice, you know, the floor price has been in place, you know, for several years. And that's what we are engaging in as an industry through ALTON, with engagements with the minister. What we did do, as we spoke with full year results, at the end of Q3, we did introduce new bundles that we, you know, frame it as bundle optimization, that has supported, you know, the strong growth that you saw at the top line level in Nigeria. Without the tariff increase, we got to 32%. So data there, 40% traffic growth, you know, almost mid-fifties. Data revenue growth was boosted by that optimization. So, I mean, we'll continue to work-...
On both, both the tariff increase and, where optimization is possible, particularly around data. On upstreaming, you know, quarter one is seasonally very low. I think last year's comp would have been about 1.6. So we don't normally get a lot of upstreaming. It's mostly South Africa that comes in Q1. But we start getting management fees. Some of them are paid on a quarterly basis, and then the dividends that get declared, some happen at half year. So you start actually seeing, seasonally, that the bulk of the upstreaming is Q3 and Q4. Q4 is always generally, you know, much higher. So, I mean, we still feel confident that, you know, the upstreaming will come through. No upstreaming from Ghana.
And as I said, the majority of the upstreaming will be in SA, and some of the smaller markets on management fees. We'll start seeing it come through Q2 now, by the half year, and then, as I said, the majority, you normally see that, you know, come through Q3 and Q4. With Mastercard, you know, obviously, one of the key things we want to launch and get out the way is really the, you know, the virtual cards. You know, ours is a, you know, most mobile money system or fintech systems in our markets, these are closed-loop systems, most of them, not all.
You know, what this virtual card really enables us to do is, you know, take our customers out of the walled garden of the MTN MoMo business into kind of a broader ecosystem, with the ability to make payments with MoMo overlaid by the virtual card capability that we get from Mastercard. So that's what we are kicking off. So big push on issuance and acceptance, so also a big push on the merchant side, as I mentioned. You know, we saw very good growth on merchants, and that's obviously ultimately going to be a big part of the success of our strategy, is just a ubiquitous merchant ecosystem to support our strategy.
And then just a question, maybe while we're still on fintech, how likely are you to do a MoMo transaction this year, i.e. a further sell-down?
Yeah, shareholders like to ask me that, and when I don't deliver in the period, then I get beat up. I mean, all I can say is we carry on working on this. You know, we are, you know, working on the second process, so that's kind of underway. Thato, as you said, I mustn't give shareholders timeline, 'cause they'll ask me that, but that... I mean, the work is ongoing. We're not sitting still on this.
Thanks, well, maybe just a question on balance sheet. Can you discuss the plan for addressing the whole core company debt? Previously, it was communicated that the goal would be to bring FX debt to a de minimis level as soon as possible. Is this still the case? What funding options would be available to take out the debt?
Thanks, Thato. I'll take that. I mean, we're still on track. We communicated to the market with the year-end results that we still have about $97 million to clear on the 2024 Eurobond which is due in the last quarter. So plans will be underway to clear that, and then we'll, we will have the 2026 bond as we indicated. So we will explore, you know, liability management, you know, subject to market condition when the time is right. And we, as we indicated as well, we do have the domestic medium-term note in South Africa that we utilize. We're comfortable that we have sufficient headroom to be able to tap into that.
I think, as we indicated before, that mix is well within our target of 40% USD to ZAR. We are currently at 23%. USD ZAR at 77%.
Tsholo, some follow-up questions on SA. Why is EBITDA margin taking longer to recover, especially since load shedding is now much better? And then how much was the contribution of price hikes in the growth of SA service revenues? Do you expect more? I think you did cover that earlier. And then, your organic growth rate is now at low double... I think that should be low single digits, you're at low single digits. How quickly should we expect it to track back to your medium-term guidance?
Yeah, maybe just, just a quick point on pricing, just to emphasize. Most of the prices will come in only in, let's say, May, and there were very few price change that we did in April. So the current performance that you see does not necessarily show all the price changes that we have done. The big one that will be reflective on the performance will be the postpaid, which was done in February. So just us on the, on the pricing. I guess the issue of EBITDA, maybe Dineo can just deal with that.
Yeah.
Just why is it taking longer to recover, especially given that load shedding is now much better?
Yeah, I think in terms of how we've guided, how we are guiding that we'll be able to return to the guidance of 37-39 range by the time we get to year-end. You must remember that there are lag effects in terms of ability to recover service revenue because the improvement period of network availability takes time then to be able to recover service revenue. So as we get into half two, that's when we're able to close out within guidance.
Thanks, Dineo. Okay, that covers that. Still on South Africa, who will - this is on the tower unwind, the pairs unwind, who will manage or pay for security of batteries backup power on site? Will this put upward pressure on OpEx? And then strategic options for towers, assuming IHS is unwilling to renegotiate, I guess this is Nigeria now. Strategic options for towers, assuming IHS is unwilling to renegotiate the current lease terms, what other strategic options are there for MTN?
Yeah, on the batteries, we will cover that cost, that is, the assets belongs to MTN. That cost was also factored in into an initial price agreement, so there's no expectation of any acceleration in cost.
Of on-
Oh, yeah, the strategic options. Look, I mean, as I said, the plan is to try and renegotiate the contracts, so we're putting all our investment there, and Karl and team are looking at that. It's a complex... You know, you're talking about 17,000 towers, each with its own lease agreement and different portfolios, so these are not simple contracts to renegotiate, with many variables and long tenures. So I mean, that's always plan A. Plan B, there's obviously the trade-through. The bulk of the towers, as I said, you know, expire in 4.5 years, and, you know, obviously could be...
One doesn't want to necessarily take that path, but there is, you know, continue as you are, and then, you know, assess your options as the various tower portfolios come up for renewal. That's always an option. There's always an option that, you know, you know, you could look at some of your towers and buy back some of your towers. I think in the suite of all options, you would have to put that there as well. But obviously, that's capital allocation decision that requires a lot of discipline. So I mean, these are basically the, the two options outside of renegotiate. Trade-through, which is kind of toughed it out.
You know, what that actually means is, particularly when you look at the lease mathematics, is that, you know, with the tenure, each year you bring down the impact, particularly below EBITDA, you know, gets reduced, you know, particularly on the lease liability. So that trade-through option is an option that, you know, we could consider. But as I said, to be clear, our preference is to a successful renegotiation.
Maybe while we're just still on the tower, on the issue of towers, another question on Nigeria: Please, can you provide an update on the decision to transition tower leases from IHS to ATC? How is this progressing and expected timeline for the full transition? Will there be duplicate costs and/or CapEx, impacts in terms of as a result of the switch?
Yeah, look, as you well remember, there is 2,500 sites. I think 1,400 of those sites, there's absolutely no issue. So I think we can start there, that, you know, those 1,400, you know, pretty much cleared, and there are no issues. The other 1,100, you know, these ones, you know, we need to have GPS coordinates approved or submitted to the NCC for approval. So that's kind of, you know, work ongoing. But the other, I said one, to be exact, 1,380, over to ATC, I mean, there are no issues whatsoever there. So Karl and team are continuing to engage, you know, on the balance of the 1,100 in terms of coordinates, getting approvals, et cetera.
Thanks, Ralph. And then just a question on expense efficiency. Do you see cost, the cost efficiency program having a net positive impact on margins, so it'll be broad, or will it be broadly absorbed by cost inflation?
Yeah, I mean, we're doing all we can to try and improve our margins. And as we've indicated, you know, the focus is over the medium term, over the next 3 years, ZAR 7-8 billion. We do expect that we will see some level of improvement, but given the extent of the FX impacts as well as inflation, particularly in Nigeria, we don't see that being able to, you know, get us to, you know, all historical levels of margin. So it is going to be over the medium term that we start seeing that repair, but not in this financial year.
Thanks. So there are a couple of questions on the PaaS unwind in SA. Could you please walk through the rationale of unwinding the power service agreement in SA, and what impact do you expect this to have on the economics? That's one question. And then one that's related to that, do you expect it to have a broader impact in terms of renegotiations elsewhere, like Nigeria?
Yeah, maybe just on the rationale. I mean, we I think in the engagements last year, we did mention the fact that the accelerated levels of load shedding in South Africa, you know, was problematic, I think, in terms of capacity for IHS to deliver, but also, you know, capital. And I thought what we decided was to say, "Maybe it's best if we, you know, in-source it for a while and project manage the execution." And when we looked back, I think we're very proud about the intervention that we did, in terms of ability to be able to roll this out.
We have to say, though, that this was an amicable decision that we've taken with IHS, and that was really the basis of why we did that, and I think the results of what we've achieved demonstrate that. In terms of the cost profiling, no, there is no impact in terms of cost increases. Most of these changes that we have done in the in-sourcing was just based on what we modeled in terms of the business plan for 2024. And the emphasis in terms of delivering, why we're confident that we're going to do it, we still have to mention that we're still using partners. This does not mean that these are, you know, overloaded MTN SA headcount. This is still delivered through partners who manage services.
It's that we sort of like manage this ourselves operationally, but generally, it's still being delivered by partners. Thanks.
... Yeah, on the second point, I mean, yeah, it's, it's got no issue in terms of the relationship. I mean, on, you know, two days ago, you know, Sam Darwish did, you know, give me the heads up that they would be commenting on the unwind of the PaaS and their results, and we said we'd obviously be doing the same. So this is a mutually agreed... You know, Charles and team believe that they can manage it for, for value. I mean, this for IHS seemed like an outsized, you know, potential, you know, a challenge in terms of the costs, you know, particularly in SA, while they're trying to build up the network of these, service providers. So we mutually agreed to kind of roll back, the power as a service.
That's all very mutually agreed. I mean, Charles, that doesn't - is not speaking about, you know, the medium to long-term opportunity there. But there is an opportunity, you know, in managing our own PaaS assets, you know, if the load shedding improves, that, you know, we'll ultimately be able to wheel some of this back into the grid, as an example. So, this is all very mutual and very cordially done.
Thanks, both. A couple of questions on portfolio optimization. Please provide an update on localizations in Uganda and Ghana. Kindly, yeah, maybe start with that one, Ralph.
Yeah. On Uganda, I mean, we are progressing with that. As you well know, the regulatory requirement is 20%. We are 13, so we are working towards the 7% as we speak right now, so that is a work in progress. So I think we should, in the next couple of quarters, be able to update on that. So that we feel we can get away the 7%. Ghana, we mentioned the full year results, that the seven, you know, at, you know, post the end of the quarter, we've done about three of that seven. So there's like a sub-4 still to go, in Ghana, in terms of the, the localized. So these are all in progress for both Ghana and Uganda.
Just the other one was, MTN recently announced the disposal of 2 smaller opcos in WECA. Please, can you update on further portfolio rationalization initiatives and any outstanding opcos earmarked for disposal?
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of press commentary that says we've disposed of two opcos in West Africa. And we, what we said is we're talking to a party, and I think it's in the media who that party is, that we're looking to exit in an orderly way out of Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, as part of our portfolio simplification. I mean, so those discussions are ongoing with the authorities in both the markets. And, as and when those are concluded, we would, you know, come back and report to investors. There isn't anything specifically that we're working on right now in terms of exiting further markets. I mean, it's just those two that we've announced previously, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea-Conakry.
Thanks, Ralph. Then a question on holdco leverage. What do you expect your holdco leverage to be in half one, higher or lower? I guess this is for Q2. It's not Africa, so give some points to that. I mean, we can give a sense of direction for the-
Yeah. I think we did communicate that the Holdco leverage this year will be under pressure. We may be up above the 1.5 times, but we expect that we'll come back to, you know, the guided 1.5 times, you know, in 2025, 2026.
Yeah, and just on that one, I mean, I think... I mean, we can't give you the number, but I think what one has to look at is, you know, what's the progress, you know, with localizations? What's the progress with exiting some of those, you know, the two markets? And, you know, what kind of upstreaming are we getting? You know, does Nigeria come back on stream? I mean, those would be... And what progress we're making on minority investments into the platform.
So all of those, you know, come into the calculus of where we would go to, and we won't guide on the H1 outlook, but certainly, as Tsholo says, as we, as we get through this year, we should be, you know, we feel comfortable that we'll come back below the 1.5 times.
Thanks, Ralph. Thanks, Tsholo. A couple of questions on XtraTime. First one, it's in South Africa: What proportion of prepaid revenues does XtraTime contribute? How do you see this evolving over time? And then the next question is, kindly elaborate on how SA data revenue was impacted by recovery of legacy XtraTime data. Will this affect future quarters?
Yeah, I'm going to start. I mean, the first thing, maybe just to cover the penetration. In Q1 last year, we were on 23.9% penetration. That was about 257 million. In quarter one this year, 36.6% penetration rate delivered $92 million of revenue. That's 52% growth rate. That delivered $135 million in revenue. So quite significant contribution, I think, overall, you know, in terms of penetration on the recharges. Now, the question about the impact of XtraTime on data, I need to take that a little bit slowly just to explain it, because I think a lot of people want maybe a bit more clarity on that.
So when we communicated, I think it was in H2 or H1 last year, we communicated the fact that we're bringing a new vendor on board. It's in that meeting, we also mentioned that our penetration for XtraTime was about 24%, and we need to grow the base. And to actually get the penetration to 37%, you need to actually expand the addressable base. So what we looked at was that, the way customers recharge, how we claw back the loans from the customer today, you have to recharge either an airtime wallet or recharge the data bundle straight. So today, the capability that we had before on the system was that when you recharge an airtime wallet, we can claw back the loan.
But when a customer buys directly and does a recharge on data, we have no capability to actually claw back that loan. So you end up having customers who are actually now, they do, they borrow, but they actually don't pay. They go and actually get the data bundle, knowing that they cannot actually be clawed back in terms of payment. There's about 6 million customers that we had on, on that base. So last year, we implemented the bundle clawback, which means that every customer who owes us money, you know, on the loans, when they try to recharge using a data bundle, and let's say, argument's sake, recharge for ZAR 20, you owe us ZAR 10. The first thing we do, is we take our ZAR 10 back, and then only have ZAR 10 to actually buy the data bundle.
That's where the shortfall of that volume that we had to actually clean up came from, you know? But where we are today, we've almost cleaned up all that backlog, you know, but the only difference is that the comparable is still comparing the revenue for this quarter with the quarter last year, where there was no clawback. So you have to anniversary this by, let's say, end of September, then you start to be like for like. But that was really the essence of it, you know, the clawback of data bundles, which we were never used to claw, clawback on customers before. I hope this is very clear. Thanks.
Thank you, Charles. Another question on IHS. Is buying out IHS as an entity an option?
Why do we think we'd get that question on this call? I mean, I think the first thing you gotta look at is, you know, whatever we've been trying to do. We've been trying to reduce the leverage at the holdco. As Sula said, you know, we've seen, we're moving in a direction where we want de minimis amount of debt at the holdco level. And any such action, as you can well imagine, you know, kind of re-leverages the balance sheets in many respects. So, I mean, it's not something we're working on. You can have a theoretical discussion about that, but it's not something that, you know, we think is going to be executable.
Particularly now, I mean, our focus is on, you know, ensuring, you know, both Nigeria has a turnaround in its negative equity position. And as I said, there is a trade through scenario, which, you know, we, we may well work through. But at the same time, we want to maintain the strong Holdco balance sheet position, as Tsholo's mentioned, the liquidity level. And the environment is still gonna be quite challenging, and it can come up with some unexpected risks, and we need to be ready for those, you know, across our markets. So yeah, it's not... You know, it's something that one can look at, but, you know, it, it's not, you know, the priority. The priority is the renegotiations.
Thanks, Ralph. Then just a clarity question on IHS renegotiations in Nigeria. Just regarding the comment on delay in renegotiations with IHS being due to deciding on the correct USD Naira rate, should we take this as a USD basis, I think, no longer being the go-forward terms of the agreements?
Well, I think, I mean, as you can see where the pain is in Nigeria, the pain is all below, you know, gross profit. Huh? So the moment you go to gross profit and you start looking at the OpEx, the network OpEx, that's where all the pain, and a lot of it, is the repricing, is the FX resets on particularly the IT portfolio, the one that's still got, you know, 4.5 years to go. That's where there is the bulk of the, the pricing is dollar indexed. So, you know, a renegotiation with MTN Nigeria would need to deal substantially with that. So what is 70/30, I mean, there's always going to be a level of, you know, kind of should-be cost that would be dollars.
You know, you've got steel in terms of the maintenance of the towers. You've got diesel for energy. So those, those components will always be there. And on a should-be cost analysis, you might work out that somewhere between 20%-30% actually is dollar-denominated anyway, for even if you were to do it yourself. So the change is to the... The negotiations are really aimed at, you know, can we get, you know, well-priced contracts, market, market-based pricing, but with significantly much lower dollar indexation. So where you have 70/30, you know, you've got to kind of think about flipping it the other way around. That's what we're trying to, you know, work through with IHS.
Thanks, Ralph. Maybe just wrap up the call. There's a clarity question. The earlier question around low double digits, I think I said low single digits for South Africa. Apparently, it was for the group, who obviously achieved an 11%. Maybe just to talk about some of the dynamics behind the 11% and how long it will take to get back into the guidance range, which is mid-teens.
Yeah, I had a big discussion with the finance team, and I said to them, "I think the market will read these results, you know, in, you know, with respect also, without the context of how do we do constant currency measurement." If you took the view that you kept the rates, 2023 rates, against this, I mean, the number is more like mid-teens already. The big issue is, if you think about it in the composite, is Nigeria used to be X, now it's Y, because of the devaluation. So this is just, you know, a weighted average issue. Last year, Nigeria was at 400. Now, it's at 1400 odd. So the weight of Nigeria in the mix of constant currency is different.
So we're using 2024 constant currency, we have 11.4. We used last year's constant currency, you're gonna have mid-teens.
Yeah.
Pretty much mid-teens. So, we remain on our basis of using this year's rates versus... And the mix effect, and that's what gives us the 11 point. Now, to your points in terms of improvements, back to the margin, we're still committed to the mid teens. You saw that with Sudan, where we've had really the network is pretty much down. Network availability, given the war condition, is down. If you exclude that, that's 13.2. We had a little bit of voice pressure in Ghana. I think there's an MTR in Rwanda and Benin. And I'm looking through all of those. And South Africa, as we said, is at 3, nowhere near the 4 level.
So, you know, over the next 12 months, I think the base effects will reset it back into mid-teens, anyway. But I think the big thing is just the structural change in the contribution of Nigeria in the Constant Currency makeup.
Thanks, Ralph. I think with that, we can wrap up the call. We've gone through quite a few questions, so thanks to management on, on the call, and thanks to everyone for dialing in. If you do have follow-ups, please do send me an email. Thank you very much.