The financial results of the company show that MTN Ghana did not reach its target of increasing local ownership by 30% by the end of 2022.
At year's end, MTN's local ownership share was 23.7 percent, which was the same as in the first quarter of 2022.
The company's Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ralph Mupita, expressed confidence that the goal would be reached in May 2022 and cited a desire to involve more Ghanaians in the success of the telecommunications firm as the reason.
"As the MTN Group, we have committed to further localization and increasing the percentage of Ghanaians who own shares of MTN Ghana, to reach the target of 30%. We are precisely at 23.7 percent right now, so we have another 6.3 percent of shares to localize, but we have made progress, he added at the time.
We believe that for the stock price to increase, more and more Ghanaian individuals and institutions should own a portion of the assets. Liquidity is undoubtedly a function, and the MTN Group CEO continued, "We are very aware of what the MTN shares do on the Ghanaian stock exchange.
Since these comments, MTN, which leads the market on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) in terms of volume and value, has struggled along with the rest of the market.
Shortly after the E-levy was announced, its stock price started to decline in November 2021, from an all-time high of GH $1.33 to an
end of the year at GH $1.11. The decline persisted into 2022 when it dropped to an 18-month low of GH0.75 in August. The share price remained at GH 0.88 for the majority of the remainder of the year.
Due to its solid results and the Ghana Revenue Authority's decision to drop a GH8.2 billion back-tax liability case against it, the stock has seen a resurgence. It has increased by 5.68 percent year to date and 6.9 percent over the past four weeks to reach GH0.93 and a market capitalization of GH11.4 billion at the end of the first trading week in March (GRA).
2022 execution
Despite the difficult operating environment, MTN's service revenue increased by 28.3% to GH9.9 billion, and its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased by 30.9% to GH5.6 billion in 2022. Additionally, the EBITDA margin rose by 1.1 percentage points to 56.1%.
This happened as the number of active mobile subscribers increased by 12.8% to 28.6 million, while the number of active data subscribers increased by 8.3% to 13.5 million. Users of active Mobile Money (MoMo) also experienced significant growth, rising by 15% to 12.7 million.
In addition to paying GH 3.7 billion in direct and indirect taxes, MTN Ghana spent GH 2.1 billion on capital projects in 2022. Additionally, GH28.3 million were allotted for socioeconomic projects.
Selorm Adadevoh, CEO of MTN Ghana, commented: "We acknowledge the macroeconomic headwinds that may impact the business environment and our operations as we strive for operational excellence in 2023 as a core pillar for sustaining bottom-line growth for the company in the medium term. We are reviewing MTN Ghana's guidance of service revenue growth from the mid-to high-teens to low-twenties in percentage terms after carefully considering these factors and after evaluating our commercial strategy.
In comparison to the GH0.085 per share proposed in the prior year, the company has proposed a final dividend per share of GH0.124, a 42.6 percent increase. The result was an increase in the 2022 total dividend per share to GH0.164. MTN claimed that this was consistent with its policy of paying dividends on 70.6% of its profit after taxes.
