MTN closed 0.95% higher on Tuesday, despite releasing what some analysts called a "pedestrian" update in which total revenue grew 6.9% for the third quarter ended-September. Despite reporting a slight dip in subscriber numbers, to 230.1-million, MTN has grown voice traffic 9% and data revenue 31.4%, as data traffic more than doubled. But this comes from a "rebased base", said GT247 senior trader Paul Chakaduka. MTN was forced to disconnect more than 5-million subscribers in Nigeria in 2015, "so you need to have those numbers look significantly better". MTN was still "just catching up" and should be reporting revenue growth in the 20% to 30% range, he said. "On a readjusted number, in my opinion, it doesn’t look great," Chakaduka said. MTN is still wrestling with subscriber losses in its key geographies. In Nigeria, the subscriber base declined 5.2% to 50.3-million, which it blames on "the modernisation of subscriber definitions". MTN has to expand its SIM registration footprint as a...
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