The MTN Group, said it has returned to profit in 2017, recovering from a $1 billion fine it paid for its Nigerian business in the period.
It expects to report a profit for the 12 months ended December 31, Bloomberg quoted the Johannesburg-based company to have said in a statement on Monday.
That compares with a headline loss of R0.77 a share and an attributable loss of R1.44 rand a share a year earlier, it said. The company will give more information once it obtains more certainty on the profit range, it said.
The Africa’s biggest mobile-network operator by sales is working its way through a tumultuous period triggered by the Nigerian penalty in October 2015. Originally set at $5.2 billion, the penalty led to the resignation of the CEO and months of negotiations before it was eventually settled.
MTN Nigeria is part of the MTN Group, Africa’s leading cellular telecommunications company.
On May 16, 2001, MTN became the first GSM network to make a call following the globally lauded Nigerian GSM auction conducted by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) earlier in the year.
Thereafter the company launched full commercial operations beginning with Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.
MTN paid $285million for one of four GSM licences in Nigeria in January 2001. To date, in excess of US$1.8 billion has been invested building mobile telecommunications infrastructure in Nigeria.
Since launch in August 2001, MTN has steadily deployed its services across Nigeria.
It now provides services in 223 cities and towns, more than 10,000 villages and communities and a growing number of highways across the country, spanning the 36 states of the Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
