South African Telecoms Company, MTN, Thursday announced first ever loss since its inception in Nigeria.
The company said it made a $200m loss in 2016.
This is coming after suffering a huge fine in Nigeria and currency challenges in key markets.
“MTN Group’s financial results for 2016 reflect the most challenging year in the company’s 22-year history,” MTN said in a statement.
Johannesburg-based MTN reported profits of 20.2 billion rand ($1.6bn) before tax for 2015.
The company said its overall performance was hindered by lower than expected growth in both South Africa and Nigeria.
“Towards the end of 2016 our two largest operations (South Africa and Nigeria)… began to show signs of a turnaround following an extended period of underperformance”, it said.
Revenue rose up for the year at 146.9 billion rand ($11.3bn, 10.7 billion euros), the company said.
The MTN share price on the Johannesburg stock exchange rose five percent after the announcement of the company results compared to the close on Wednesday.
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