On Thursday, February 26, 2026, MTN Nigeria shared its financial report for last year (2025). The headline everyone is talking about: they made ₦1.1 trillion profit after paying tax.
To put that in perspective:
- In 2024, they lost over ₦400 billion.
- In 2025, they flipped it completely and made over ₦1 trillion profit.
That is a huge turnaround, one of the biggest any Nigerian company has ever had.
Why Did MTN Suddenly Make So Much Money?
There are three main reasons, and they are explained simply:
- The naira became more stable
Last year, the dollar price fluctuated wildly, and that cost MTN a lot of money. This year, the naira was calmer, so MTN didn’t lose billions to exchange rate problems. That alone helped them jump from loss to profit. - Everybody is using more data
Nigerians are on their phones all day, watching videos, using WhatsApp, doing school online, trading crypto, and paying bills with MoMo. MTN’s data business grew very fast. More people buying data = more money for MTN. - MoMo and mobile money are getting bigger
A lot more people are using MTN MoMo to send money, pay bills, buy airtime, even borrow small loans. That part of the business grew a lot too.
MTN also spent over ₦1 trillion last year fixing and building more masts, adding 5G in more places, and making the network stronger. So calls drop less, the internet is faster in many areas, and more places now have signal.
What Does This Mean for You, the Everyday MTN User?
Good news and things to watch:
Good news
- MTN has a lot of cash now, so they can keep improving the network.
→ You might see better signal in your area, faster internet, more 5G towns and cities. - They can afford to give more bonus data, cheaper weekend plans, or bigger bundles sometimes to keep you happy.
- They paid dividends to shareholders again (₦20 per share total for 2025), which they didn’t do in 2024. That shows they are back to being strong.
Things to watch
- Data and call prices have gone up a little in the last year.
With this big profit, some people are hoping MTN will bring prices down or give more value (bigger bundles for the same money). But others think they might keep prices high or even increase again because of inflation and equipment costs. - MTN is still the biggest network in Nigeria — more people use it than any other. That means they have power, but also more responsibility to treat customers fairly.
Finally
MTN went from losing hundreds of billions to making over ₦1 trillion in one year. That is good for the company and good for Nigeria (they pay a lot of tax to the government). For you, it probably means:
- Your network should keep getting better (fewer dropped calls, faster data).
- More places will have 5G soon.
- MoMo will become even more useful for sending money and paying bills.
- But data bundles and airtime might not suddenly become very cheap — watch and see what they do with prices in the next few months.
Do you believe MTN will give us cheaper data now that they are making so much money? Or do you think prices will stay high? Drop your thoughts below — let’s gist!
