MTN shares have fallen by more than 40% in the past year, while its competitor Vodacom has seen only a modest decline on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

The differentiator? Nigeria. Despite increasing its numbers of subscribers and active data users, MTN’s Nigerian subsidiary is been performing poorly, reporting a loss after tax of 519-billion naira for the six months to end June.

On 6 August, MTN’s share price fell to R72.70, sharply down from R140 on 1 August last year. It had inched up to around R85 a week later.

The company said the devaluation of the naira against the US dollar had ‘severely’ affected its financial performance. The naira has struggled to stabilise against the dollar since Nigeria ended its regime of regulated exchange rates in June 2023. The currency has more than doubled against the dollar to about 1,590 naira.