Telecoms company slashes dividends, reports $357 million loss

MTN Group, the largest telecommunications provider in Africa, has announced a $357 million half-year loss.

The announcement was made on Friday and along with it, the company also cut its dividend payouts. Over the past year, MTN has suffered from a clash with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in which it received a record $3.9 billion fine, something which has affected the company's financials greatly.

Back in June, MTN agreed a $1.05 billion settlement deal with the NCC following the fine which had been imposed in the first place after the company failed to cut off unregistered SIM cards on its network.

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The MTN Group's headline loss came in at $357 million (4.9 billion rand) in the six months to the end of June compared to its headline earnings of almost 12 billion rand in the previous year.

The South Africa-based company also said the results were affected by unfavorable micro-economic currency swings, underperformance in its home market and Nigeria, where it has had to cut another 4.5 million subscribers so as to comply with the NCC's registration equipment.