MTN Group has published its interim financial results for the six months ended 30 June 2026. The group released them on 24 August 2026 through the JSE’s Stock Exchange News Service, the kind of disclosure that matters to South African businesses more than its dry wording suggests.
An interim result, also called a half-year result, is a set of financial statements showing how a company performed over the first six months of its financial year: revenue, profit, cash flow and other key metrics. For South African SMEs, MTN’s performance is not just a shareholder concern, since the group supplies mobile data, voice and enterprise services that many local businesses depend on for daily operations, customer outreach and the cloud-based tools that keep a modern small business running.
What MTN reported
According to the results booklet, group service revenue rose 9.7% to R115.3 billion on a reported basis, and 17.5% in constant currency, which strips out exchange-rate movements. Data revenue rose 21.0% to R57.6 billion reported (29.2% in constant currency), and MTN describes data as the primary growth engine. Voice revenue fell 3.8% to R30.4 billion reported, but rose 2.4% in constant currency.
EBITDA before once-off items rose 20.0% on a reported basis, with the EBITDA margin up 4.4 percentage points to 47.1%. Adjusted headline earnings per share increased 21.3% to 793 cents, while reported headline earnings per share decreased 5.8% to 615 cents. MTN spent R19.7 billion on capital expenditure, excluding leases, and no interim dividend was declared, the same as a year earlier.
On customers, total subscribers rose 6.7% to 317.7 million and active data subscribers rose 9.1% to 179.3 million. Mobile Money monthly active users grew 12.1% to 70.8 million.
Why MTN’s balance sheet is everyone’s business
A stronger MTN balance sheet can support continued investment in network coverage and capacity, which is the downstream effect business customers care about. MTN says it invested in network quality, customer experience and digital platforms during the period. South Africa’s telecom sector is also navigating regulatory change and steadily rising data consumption, and spectrum costs and regulation directly affect the cost of expanding 5G infrastructure for every operator, MTN included.
The group-level numbers blend many markets. MTN’s footprint stretches well beyond South Africa, with significant operations in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and other African markets, and the results booklet notes temporary disruptions to fintech in Nigeria and Uganda. Strong growth in one region can be offset by currency or regulatory pressure in another, so these results reflect a blended picture rather than a single South African story. For local SMEs, the part that matters most is the health and investment plans of MTN’s South African operation, which the group reports separately.
This is worth reading alongside the local subsidiary’s own results: see this site’s report on MTN South Africa’s half-year results. MTN Group’s own investor relations disclosures carry the full results booklet, including the H1 2026 results announcement.
