Maihapa Ndjavera

MTC’s Chief Financial Officer Thinus Smit yesterday outlined the financial results of Namibia’s first cellular service provider when he confirmed an increase in revenue by 4.62% to N$2.614 billion for the 2018/19 financial year.

MTC’s earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation (EBITA), which is a measure of company profitability used by investors, decreased by 10.1% to N$1.345 billion (2018 N$1.496 billion), mainly as a result of the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 15, which managed the way MTC accounts for postpaid subscription revenue.

At the announcement of the financial results, Chief Commercial Officer Melvin Angula highlighted that MTC has achieved an annual growth compound rate of 4.5% in revenue, which also indicated 9.6% increase in net profit since 2014. He said the company has worked hard in ensuring they can migrate all customers from 2GB services to digital access (likes of 3G, 4G and 4.5G).

“Our revenue growth has been one of those key elements that have shown that amid the economic climate and issues we are going through right now, we have become innovative enough to find other revenue sources and other key enablers and other value-added services that set customers’ needs apart from the three basic services MTC has been providing the past couple of years. That is how we came to Taamba services that were recently introduced,” noted Angula.

MTC is the largest telecommunications operator in Namibia, serving over 2.5 million subscribers. It reported it has extensive distribution networks of 36 mobile homes, 29 dealerships (airtime sellers and distributors), and 24-hour customer contact centres and network management, as well as technical quality centres. MTC still controls a 91% mobile market share in terms of Namibian communications and provides 97% population coverage, which aims to increase to 100% by 2021.Angula said achieving 97% given the Namibian landscape is a huge milestone in terms of how much MTC is doing in trying to connect all communities in the country. “It is quite a big milestone and a lot of investment being put back in ensuring that all our customers can connect to the MTC family where ever they are,” he said. In terms of social responsibility, MTC has donated about N$15 million towards football in the country, specifically the Namibian Football Association, about N$7.8 million to the Namibia Music Awards, as well as over N$16 million to support boxing initiatives. In enabling communities, MTC also has a national internship program taking in about 160 students every year. 
– mndjavera@nepc.com.na