MTN South Africa is targeting between R4-billion and R6-billion in savings by 2029 under a sweeping “structural reset” that its new CEO, Ferdi Moolman, insists is a restructuring of the business rather than a simple cost-cutting exercise.
Presenting at MTN Group’s capital markets day on Wednesday, Moolman positioned the South African operation less as a growth engine than as the group’s financial anchor.
Unlike MTN’s faster-growing markets such as Nigeria, he said, South Africa lacks the “market depth” to grow at the same pace, and its primary role is “cash upstreaming and dividend anchor for group”.
Moolman said absolute earnings growth mattered more to him than Ebitda margin, and that MTN South Africa would chase “quality growth” over raw market share, with the biggest opportunities in home connectivity and enterprise.
At the centre of the plan is what Moolman repeatedly called a “structural reset”.
“It’s not just an expense, it’s a structural reset of the business itself,” he said – a change in how MTN goes to market, services customers and uses technology, rather than a blunt efficiency drive. “You can’t cut yourself to greatness; you need to invest,” he said.
MTN South Africa has already stripped out about R4.6-billion in costs over the past three years and is targeting a further R4-billion to R6-billion by 2029.
Three broad areas
The savings are to come from three broad areas. The first is channel economics: MTN is scrutinising the profitability of its distribution channels – particularly the cost of acquiring high-churn prepaid customers, where churn in the prepaid mass market can exceed 90% – and is prepared to close channels that don’t pay their way. It is also reworking the commissions and discounts it pays distributors, having already adjusted them late last year, to ensure they reward the right behaviour rather than simply funding churn.
The second is its operating model, where digitisation and AI are meant to lower the cost to serve. Moolman pointed to a long-running upgrade of MTN’s fragmented business support systems (BSS) and a push to move customers off USSD and onto the MTN app, which has just two million users. In the short term, MTN is optimising USSD itself – moving the recharge option to the top of the menu, for instance – while nudging users up the digital stack, where servicing them is cheaper.
The third is network and technology procurement, with MTN renegotiating supplier contracts through its centralised procurement hub in Dubai. Moolman said capital expenditure intensity would stay within group guidance of 13-15%, targeting around 13%, with more of the spend directed at home coverage and at the IT systems needed to serve customers digitally.
A significant part of the reset involves MTN’s wholesale business – which spans interconnect, bulk SMS, inbound roaming, MVNOs and national roaming – where Moolman said MTN is overhauling how it prices access to its network.
MTN is moving to a new four-pillar pricing framework for MVNOs and national roaming partners, based on price, capacity, quality and – for the first time – the market segment the partner serves. Moolman said MTN had no interest in empowering an MVNO that competed directly where MTN was already strong, warning that some players now treated the telecoms industry as a loss-leader, risking “value destruction” at the top end of the market.
Read: MTN Group goes all-in on platforms and AI
The most consequential negotiation is with Cell C, which roams nationally on MTN’s network. Moolman said MTN was bound by a non-disclosure agreement but was “pushing from our side to get it done before July” to land a new pricing structure that works for both operators. He noted the original Cell C agreement had delivered MTN more than roaming revenue – including access to spectrum that helped it lead on network roll-out – but that market conditions had since changed.
Moolman also flagged two South Africa-specific regulatory issues: Icasa’s proposed end-user and subscriber service rules, which touch on data roll-over and the transfer of data between subscribers, and the MVNO provisions in the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill. He described the end-user rules as a short-term challenge MTN was working through with the industry and the regulator. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
