Telecom giant says Nigerian unit to report roughly $955 mln in FY profit

South African telecoms group MTN said on Tuesday its Nigerian business is likely to report about $955 million in annual profit after tax, confirming a newspaper report in the west African country.

"Profit after tax figure for MTN Nigeria for the period ended 31 December 2015 being quoted in the press article, is 190 billion naira ($955 million), which is within the current estimate," the company said in a statement.

The telecom giant's Nigerian unit had been fined $5.2 billiion by the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission back in October, 2015, for failing to deactivate unregistered SIMs on its network.

The fine was later reduced to $3.9 billion by the regulator giving the company a December 31, 2015, deadline to pay up.

However, MTN then made a turn around and challenged the NCC's fine in court, stating that it wasn't the regulators place to impose such a huge fine on it. The company's lawyers also told the court that the fine was imposed on the telecom company in bad faith.

The case is still in court and is yet to go to trial and MTN has insisted that it will not pay the fine unless the court comes to a decision. The NCC has also been silent on what step it would take next, especially since the company failed to meet the December 31, 2015 deadline it set for the payment of the fine.