MTN Group has identified Uganda as a potential crown jewel in its stable, as it seeks to enhance its East African presence. Africa’s largest telecommunications provider sees the East Africa country as a growing market for data, fintech, and digital infrastructure.
This is according to MTN Group president and CEO Ralph Mupita, who hosted an editors’ roundtable discussion to provide an update on the mobile operator’s performance and ambitions. Mupita discussed MTN’s capital investment goals and strategic technology deployment activities, highlighting the importance of affordable devices in closing the usage gap.
He also provided insights into business expansion in East Africa, notably Uganda. “Iam surprised that in Uganda we still have relatively low smartphone penetration. So that is a market where we need to bring device financing and we are seeing data growth. “We see significant growth opportunities and increasing contribution towards the group results coming out of Uganda,” he said.
Mupita’s confidence in the Uganda market follows MTN subsidiary’s outstanding performance in that country during the financial year 2024. During the time, MTN Uganda declared a record-breaking net profit of $175 million (UGX 641.5 billion), rewarding shareholders with hefty dividends.
In addition to financial success, MTN Uganda’s strong presence in the fintech space has played an important role in company growth. The company now has 13.8 million fintech users and 10.1 million data subscribers. MTN Uganda is the country’s leading mobile operator, with a presence in all 134 districts.
It offers a variety of products and services, including voice, data, digital, and mobile financial services, through a network of approximately 120,000 mobile money agents, 200 service stores, and 14 main distributors.