MTN confirms significant losses

MTN Nigeria, the biggest market for JSE-listed MTN, last week said its loss widened six-fold in its half-year to end-June, when it was hammered by a depreciation in the naira, regulatory moves that cost it subscribers, as well as a general economic downturn in Africa's most populous nation. It reported a loss of 519.1bn naira ($312m) to end-June, from a restated 85.6bn naira previously. But even without this effect, profit would have halved, while its negative shareholder equity climbed just over a quarter to about $438m. Fin24 reports that the group needed to bar 8.6m subscribers, following a regulatory directive to do so for those who hadn't linked identity numbers to their SIM cards, but its subscriber count still picked up 2.6% year-on-year to 79.4m. The company said it was looking to build on its fintech momentum in its second half while it was also still engaging with Nigerian regulators as it looks to tariff increases, which is one of a series of measures the group is pushing to climb out of its financial hole.