MTN Nigeria is making more money than ever, but there is an interesting shift happening beneath the company's headline growth: the average customer is contributing less to that revenue.
In the first half of 2026, MTN Nigeria's service revenue increased by 25.9% to ₦2.99 trillion, while its subscriber base grew by 8.9% to 92.2 million.
On the surface, the numbers look impressive.
But average revenue per user (ARPU), which measures how much revenue a telecom company generates from each customer, tells a different story.
In the second quarter of 2026, MTN Nigeria's dollar-denominated ARPU fell 8.82% to $3.41. Its ARPU in naira also declined, falling 1.67% to ₦5,101.
That raises an important question: If MTN has more customers and is generating more revenue, why is the average customer spending less?
One explanation is the rapid growth in MTN's subscriber base.
The company added 7.5 million subscribers during the first half of 2026, bringing its total to 92.2 million.
New customers do not necessarily spend as much as long-standing customers. Many are highly price-sensitive and may use smaller data bundles or spend less on voice services.
At the same time, Nigerian consumers are still dealing with elevated living costs. With inflation at 15.91% in June 2026, customers have less room in their budgets for non-essential spending.
MTN's management has acknowledged that its commercial strategy changes depending on market conditions.
During periods when customers can afford to spend more, the company can focus on increasing revenue per customer. When affordability becomes more challenging, it can instead prioritise acquiring new customers and encouraging usage.
That trade-off is increasingly important for MTN.
The company has already benefited significantly from higher tariffs. Now, it needs to find ways to grow without simply asking customers to pay more.
Pricing was one of MTN Nigeria's biggest growth drivers in 2025.
The company increased its tariffs by 50% early that year, and service revenue subsequently surged.
By the second quarter of 2025, service revenue had grown by 67.9% year-on-year.
A year later, growth had slowed considerably. In Q2 2026, service revenue growth was 13.3% year-on-year.
This slowdown is partly because the impact of the earlier tariff increase has now been fully reflected in the company's results.
In other words, MTN cannot keep relying on the same price increase to produce another major jump in revenue.
As MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola explained, revenue growth moderated in Q2 as the company reached the point where previous price adjustments had been fully annualised.
The next stage of growth therefore requires a different strategy.
If pricing is no longer enough, MTN needs customers to use more of its services.
Data is the obvious opportunity.
MTN added millions of subscribers in the first half of the year, while average data usage per subscriber increased by 15.2%. Total data traffic increased by 25.8%, and smartphone penetration reached 66.4%.
Data revenue also increased by 38.4% during H1 2026.
For MTN, this is significant because data usage can grow even when customers are reluctant to spend more on traditional voice services.
As more Nigerians use smartphones for video, social media, entertainment, work, education, shopping and financial services, the amount of data they consume can continue increasing.
MTN's management has described data as its largest structural growth opportunity.
The challenge is finding the right balance between price and value.
If data becomes too expensive, customers may reduce their consumption. If MTN offers significantly more data without increasing prices, usage can grow but revenue per user may not improve enough.
The company therefore needs to encourage higher consumption while keeping its services affordable enough to retain customers.
MTN Nigeria's biggest advantage is its enormous customer base.
With 92.2 million subscribers, Nigeria is by far the largest market in MTN Group's portfolio.
But Nigeria does not generate the highest revenue per customer.
In Q2 2026, MTN's average revenue per user in Ghana was $6.66, compared with $3.41 in Nigeria.
South Africa recorded an ARPU of $5.26.
That means an average customer in Ghana generated roughly twice as much revenue for MTN as an average customer in Nigeria.
The difference highlights an important characteristic of the Nigerian market: scale is enormous, but customer spending power remains relatively constrained.
Nigeria's huge population gives MTN an opportunity to generate significant revenue through volume. But converting that scale into higher value per customer is more difficult.
MTN is also looking beyond mobile data.
Home broadband is becoming an increasingly important part of its strategy, particularly as demand for high-speed internet grows.
The company is expanding fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services in high-value areas while using 5G fixed wireless access to reach more customers.
This gives MTN another opportunity to monetise households rather than relying exclusively on individual mobile subscribers.
For example, instead of a household purchasing several individual mobile data bundles, MTN could provide a home broadband connection that supports multiple people and devices.
As more Nigerians work remotely, stream content, attend online classes, operate businesses and use cloud-based services, reliable home internet could become an increasingly valuable service.
The company's other major opportunity is financial services.
MTN already has millions of customers who use its telecommunications services. The challenge is converting some of those customers into users of its financial products.
MTN currently has about 5 million fintech subscribers and has set its sights on reaching 30 million over the medium term.
That would allow the company to generate revenue from its existing customer base beyond calls and data.
The opportunity is significant because Nigeria already has a large and active digital financial-services market.
Mobile payments, transfers, digital wallets, lending and other financial products have become increasingly popular, creating a large market for companies that can successfully serve customers at scale.
However, MTN is entering a competitive space.
Established fintech companies already have millions of users and strong digital products. Building a competitive financial-services business will require more than simply having a large telecom subscriber base.
MTN will need to offer products that customers actually want to use regularly.
MTN Nigeria's situation reflects a broader challenge facing many large African businesses.
Getting millions of customers is one problem.
Getting those customers to spend more sustainably is another.
MTN has already achieved extraordinary scale in Nigeria. With more than 90 million subscribers, there is limited room for the company to rely entirely on acquiring new customers forever.
Eventually, subscriber growth will slow.
When that happens, revenue growth will depend increasingly on how much value the company can generate from its existing customer base.
That is why data, broadband and fintech are so important.
Instead of relying on another major tariff increase, MTN can potentially increase customer value by:
MTN Nigeria's numbers are still strong.
Revenue is growing.
The subscriber base is expanding.
Data consumption is increasing.
But the easy growth provided by previous tariff adjustments is beginning to fade.
That changes the company's challenge.
In 2025, MTN could generate significantly more revenue by charging existing customers higher prices.
In 2026 and beyond, the company increasingly needs to create more value from a much larger customer base.
That means getting Nigerians to consume more data, adopt higher-value connectivity services and use more of MTN's digital and financial products.
Nigeria remains MTN's largest market by subscriber numbers and one of its most important contributors to group revenue.
The opportunity is therefore enormous.
But so is the challenge.
MTN Nigeria already has the customers. The next question is whether it can turn those 92.2 million subscribers into a deeper, more valuable digital ecosystem.