Product Code Database
MTN Group Limited (formerly M-Cell)"M-Cell is Now MTN Group Limited." PR Newswire: 1. 11 October 2002. ProQuest. Web. 11 November 2013 is a South Africa multinational corporation and mobile telecommunications provider. Its head office is in Johannesburg. MTN is among the largest mobile network operators in the world, and the largest in Africa.
MTN is active in over 20 countries including Asian countries like Syria, with one-third of company revenue generated in Nigeria, where it held about 35 percent market share in 2016, and 289.1 million subscribers in December 2022.
MTN Group is the primary sponsorship of the South Africa national rugby union team and sponsors English football club Manchester United and Zambian Super League. The Nigerian subsidiary of the group also has an existing sponsorship deal with the Nigerian Football Federation.
MTN's competitors in South Africa include Vodacom, Cell C and Telkom Mobile.
In May 2008, Bharti Airtel, an India-based telecommunications company, explored the possibility of buying MTN Group. Reliance Communications was also in talks with MTN for a "potential combination of their businesses". In July, the two companies ended discussions regarding the merger.
In June 2008, MTN Group agreed to purchase Verizon Business South Africa, which was a provider of data services to customers in South Africa and four other African countries. The acquisition was completed on 28 February 2009.
On 26 June 2009, MTN Group's subsidiary merged with Belgacom International Carrier Services (BICS), a subsidiary of Belgacom. The combined subsidiary functioned as the international gateway for carrier services of MTN.
In October 2012, MTN announced a partnership with Afrihost to provide DSL Broadband services in Africa.
In November 2012, South African holding company Shanduka Group acquired a minority stake in MTN Group's Nigeria business for $335 million.
In 2014, the company sold its tower portfolios in Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Zambia and Rwanda to IHS Towers. That year, MTN was named to the 2014 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand rankings and named the Most Admired and Most Valuable Brand in Africa, retaining the latter ranking in 2015. IHS Towers later acquired MTN South Africa’s towers, in 2022.
In March 2016, the company appointed Rob Shuter as CEO, who was succeeded on 1 September 2020 by Ralph Mupita.
In May 2023, in support of the company's "Ambition 2025" plan to structurally separate its fibre business; MTN rebranded subsidiary MTN GlobalConnect as Bayobab, operating as Bayobab Fibre and Bayobab Communication. On March 14, 2024, several undersea cables were cut, disrupting service for the Africa Coast to Europe. Bayobab repaired the disabled ACE and WASC lines during the following week.
In September 2019 MTN began closing stores in Nigeria and some of their stores in Johannesburg, South Africa due to rioting, looting, and attacks on some of their facilities.
Geoffrey Onyeama the Nigerian Foreign Minister stated at a press briefing on 4 September 2019, that MTN group along with Shoprite, stated that the targeted South African stores in Nigeria are "subsidiaries that are owned by Nigerians." And that "the property owned by Nigerians within Nigeria and the people working there are Nigerians."
Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's Minister of Information and Culture, reported that some of the South African companies that were attacked in Nigeria have Nigerian investors owning significant amounts of stakes, and Nigerian employees.
MTN has stated that they will continue to do business in Nigeria.
In the same year, MTN launched a communication platform ayoba.
In December 2019, former Deputy Finance Minister of the Government of South Africa, Mcebisi Jonas, was appointed as the board chairperson of the company.
As of Q2 2024, MTN is active in:
| 7.237 | (formerly Investcom) | |
| 1.844 | (operates under the MASCOM brand) | |
| 11.492 | ||
| 3.556 | ||
| 1.041 | (operates under the MTN Eswatini brand) | |
| 28.358 | (formerly Areeba) | |
| 2.886 | (formerly Investcom) | |
| 2.122 | (formerly Investcom) | |
| 55.128 | (operates under the MTN Irancell brand) | |
| 15.922 | ||
| 2.122 | (operates under the Lonestar Cell brand) | |
| 79.393 | Has the most MTN Subscribers | |
| 7.501 | 20 percent owned by Crystal Telecom Rwanda | |
| 38.465 | ||
| 7.792 | (formerly Investcom) | |
| 2.946 | (see MTN South Sudan, formerly Investcom) | |
| 20.724 (2024) | MTN Uganda | |
| 6.897 | MTN Zambia is the mobile network market leader in Zambia with a market share of 44 percent. |
Supersonic provides Fibre through most Service Providers including Openserve and Vumatel. SuperSonic also offers “Air Fibre”, a 5G Based Mobile data service introduced in February 2021.
In July 2021, they were fourth from the bottom of a list of 16 big ISP's that were rated.
On 18 March 2010, it was announced that MTN signed a sponsorship deal with English football club Manchester United F.C.
MTN Group has been the title sponsor of the Ghana FA Cup, renaming the competition as MTN FA Cup, since 2010.
Since 2017, MTN Group is the primary sponsor of the South Africa national rugby union team.
From 2013 till date, its foundation - MTN Foundation- has sponsored Nigerian Students with financial and educational grants well over ₦2.5 billion. It gave over 1,000 students across 2 geo-political zones in Nigeria ₦300,000 grant each in October, 2024.
In June 2012, Reuters and the BBC reported an allegation by Chris Kilowan, a former executive for the company in Iran, that MTN Group may have been complicit in securing American telecommunications technology from Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems on behalf of Irancell, in violation of trade sanctions against Iran. Oracle, which owns Sun Microsystems, said that it was investigating and denied involvement, saying that it complies with US export laws. Hewlett-Packard issued a similar statement. MTN Group denied the allegations, saying that it complied with US sanctions against Iran.
The Quality audit carried out by the NCC on MTN network revealed unregistered 5.2 million customers lines were not deactivated as directed. This led to the NCC fining MTN with the sum of $1000 for each unregistered SIM according to the Telephone Subscribers regulation (TSR) law, which amounted to $5.2bn.
What followed was major resignations among the top echelon of the organization including the chief executive officer, Sifiso Dabengwa, the Head of Nigeria Operation, Micheal Ikpoki and the Head of Cooperate Affairs, Akinwale Goodluck being replaced with Phuthuma Nhleko, Ferdi Moolman and Amina Oyegbola as new chairman, managing director and Head of Corporate and Regulation respectively.
The new management employed a diplomatic measure between the government of the South Africa and its Nigerian counterpart to ameliorate the burden of the liabilities from the fine. This action brought about the reduction of the liability to $3.2 billion.
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