Africa’s biggest mobile-network operator by sales said it returned to profit in 2017, recovering from a $1bn fine it paid for its Nigerian business in the prior period.

It expects to report a profit for the 12 months ended December 31, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement on Monday. That compares with a headline loss of 77 cents a share and an attributable loss of 144c a share a year earlier, it said.

The company will give more information once it obtains more certainty on the profit range, it said.

MTN is working its way through a tumultuous period triggered by the Nigerian penalty in October 2015. Originally set at $5.2bn, the penalty led to the resignation of the CEO and months of negotiations before it was eventually settled.

As of March 2017, the company had already paid a total of N110bn of the N330bn fine.

The remaining payments to be made in tranches are N55bn by March 31, 2018; N55bn by December 31, 2018; another N55bn by March 31, 2019, and a balance of N55bn latest May 31, 2019.

SOURCE: https://brandspurng.com/mtn-returns-to-profit-as-it-overcomes-1billion-nigeria-fine/

Why are they making the payment in naira? Okay, agreed they are operating in Nigeria and they get paid for their services in naira, but since the fine is in dollars, if they must pay in naira, why not the Naira equivalent? Because the last time I checked, 1 billion dollars is N360bn and that is a difference of 30bn. 30bn can support SME significantly as a soft loan. Pls don't talk about govt official exchange rate as that one is not available to even some high ranking govt officials.

interesting

The people that taught they will go bankrupt will be here now praising them...


The Lord is Good

But we Nigerians are the one who bear the loss, believe it or not its poor Nigerians using their network who bear the payment. Mtn stylishly milked subscribers to get the money.

Have they finished paying their fine? Bloody xenophobists

At whose expense?
Failed state

That's cool but we are not unaware it is actually a game of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

NCC giving us fine and claiming it was given to mtn. This is a robbery tactics by the federal government to collect more tax from us illegally

Now we go rest with those their outrageous tariffs.

Oya let them increase their data volume

12submarine:
Why are they making the payment in naira? Okay, agreed they are operating in Nigeria and they get paid for their services in naira, but since the fine is in dollars, if they must pay in naira, why not the Naira equivalent? Because the last time I checked, 1 billion dollars is N360bn and that is a difference of 30bn. 30bn can support SME significantly as a soft loan. Pls don't talk about govt official exchange rate as that one is not available to even some high ranking govt officials.

You are salivating on a loooooooon journey..

Money that won't be and can never be account for

Thats good news.

So all these their excess charges on calls and charges for services I didn't subscribe to is being channelled towards servicing their fine.

$1bn wen e never still pay

NCC have succeeded in bringing glo down by forcing them to slash their data...
Poor network services + high data price = bankruptcy

Milking. Nigeria dry

innocent /poor Nigerians were indirectly/dubiously forced to cough out this penalty fees!

too bad!

I smell some financial statement fraud.

Cc: Olympus Corp. Japan

Where is the $1bn fine now?

How has it been used to improve the lives of Nigerians?

So much noise was made by the government in imposing the fine. Can someone step forward and tell the people how these public funds were used?

Later someone will come out and shout that GEJ's government was full of corruption.

All na scam

Reminds me of Buhari's "initial gra-gra" and body language.

Mtn charged me 3 naira for transferring 100 naira airtime via share and sell. Thieves!

Abeg make den update my Sim with just 1k recharge card.

With the way and manner mtn has exploited Nigeria. It should be paying this fine every year. Very stingy network.

E even good..... Make them come do promo give us.

After Abba Kyari and the cabals have collected #500 million as settlement
Honestly people around Buhari are worse than the devil himself.

12submarine:
Why are they making the payment in naira? Okay, agreed they are operating in Nigeria and they get paid for their services in naira, but since the fine is in dollars, if they must pay in naira, why not the Naira equivalent? Because the last time I checked, 1 billion dollars is N360bn and that is a difference of 30bn. 30bn can support SME significantly as a soft loan. Pls don't talk about govt official exchange rate as that one is not available to even some high ranking govt officials.

First and foremost the initial fine of 5 billion dollars was nothing but criminal and mindless extortion from the useless Buhari , after Zuma came it was negotiated down to 180 billion Naira to be paid in staggers ..For your information MAN is not looking anything from the fine because it's is poor Nigerians that still paid for it ( if you get my drift) That fine was one of shortsights of the Buhari govt that led to massive capital fliightbout of Nigeria ...at the end of the day we didn't get the 5 billion dollars and Nigeria lost 8 times that amount in capital flights ...MTN used to be the biggest supporters of a lot of small businesses and with the coming of that fine many of such third party arrangements were cancelled to save cost.

12submarine:
Why are they making the payment in naira? Okay, agreed they are operating in Nigeria and they get paid for their services in naira, but since the fine is in dollars, if they must pay in naira, why not the Naira equivalent? Because the last time I checked, 1 billion dollars is N360bn and that is a difference of 30bn. 30bn can support SME significantly as a soft loan. Pls don't talk about govt official exchange rate as that one is not available to even some high ranking govt officials.

Depends on the exchange rate you are using.. One dollar to 360naira is for black market.
This useless govt has up ten different rates. Officially its between 305 and 315 to a usd.

meant4all:
But we Nigerians are the one who bear the loss, believe it or not its poor Nigerians using their network who bear the payment. Mtn stylishly milked subscribers to get the money.

You are very correct my brother as this was my thought immediately that I landed on this thread.

The rate at which they've been deducting data has been alarming! !!

12submarine:
Why are they making the payment in naira? Okay, agreed they are operating in Nigeria and they get paid for their services in naira, but since the fine is in dollars, if they must pay in naira, why not the Naira equivalent? Because the last time I checked, 1 billion dollars is N360bn and that is a difference of 30bn. 30bn can support SME significantly as a soft loan. Pls don't talk about govt official exchange rate as that one is not available to even some high ranking govt officials.

It was 330 as at d time of d fine...