MTN Group Limited (MTN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Presentation] Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Thato Motlanthe. I look after Group Investor Relations at the MTN Group. And it's my privilege and my duty to welcome everybody to our financial results for the half year ended the 30th of June 2024. So I'm delighted to welcome our valued investors into the MTN Innovation Center, those who have come in person as well as the MTN's in the house as well as across all of our markets, as well as everyone who's dialed in on the various platforms. So we're live on CNBC Africa. We're on the webcast. We're also on the MTN YouTube and LinkedIn channel. So welcome to everybody. So let's just start off with the usual housekeeping items. First and foremost, you should be seeing our standard disclaimer and safe harbor slide, and that just covers the presentation for today. And then those of you in the room, you'll be glad to know that the emergency exits have not changed. There's one to my right and one to the back of the auditorium. And then just for your convenience, we do have the WiFi details that should come up on screen now, yellow events. We've also got a QR code, which you can try and scan very quickly as I run through, and that should give you a download of the presentation pack for today. If we go into the next slide, we've got the social media platforms. And if you're tweeting, we're on -- you can use the # MTN INTERIMS '24 and the Twitter handle with X Handle for MTN Group is @MTNGroup. If we move forward, and I think in terms of the last thing before I get into celebration of our 30 years, we do have refreshments for you for those who have come in. They will be in the usual place, again, just outside of the auditorium. So I mean I think as we commence today's proceedings, I think it's important to acknowledge a significant milestone in MTN's journey. This is our 30th year in existence. And really 3 decades of sustained growth, innovation and creating value for all of our stakeholders and shareholders. And really, just in terms of building on this legacy, the interim results that we present today are really here to show you an offer perspective on basically our recent performance, but also how we expect to evolve the strategy going forward. So we're very pleased about that. And I think we'll address the challenges, but as the opportunities as well. I think it's become a bit of a theme over the past couple of results that with our challenges, the opportunities as we navigate the challenges that we are -- that we faced in half 1 as well as how we create value for long-term success. So with that in mind, let's just look at today's agenda. It will be the usual running order, I'll shortly welcome our Group President and CEO, Ralph Mupita. He will run through some highlights as well as an overview of our operational and strategic review. He will be followed by our Group CFO, Tsholofelo Molefe, who will give us an overview of our financial performance. Ralph will then just come back to give you a perspective on how we think about the rest of the year and beyond. So just afterwards, we do have questions. Obviously, those in the room can ask from the floor. Those who are on the webcast can ask questions through the platform, which I'll read out. And obviously, we are scheduled for about 1.5 hours in terms of this presentation. We will cut off at about 5:00 local time. So without further ado, let me welcome our Group President and CEO to the stage, Ralph Mupita. Thank you very much.

Thato, thanks very much, and my own welcome to all who have joined us here at 14th Avenue. For those -- who had -- at 14th Avenue you would have seen as you came into the building, we're celebrating 30 years of MTN. I'm sure you saw the display of the phones that started this mobile revolution in the '90s or that [indiscernible] the various brands that were there, that we don't see any more Nokia's the 3310, which was a favorite for many. It's up there in display. It tells the story of the journey that MTN has been on, and as Thato said, this is a year of long celebrations of MTN playing its role in connecting Africans to the Internet. We now have 288 million subscribers every day using the MTN network. I saw the very first business plan of MTN for 1994. The idea was we're going to have 10,000 subscribers. 10,000 subscribers was the business case for MTN. And today, we said having connected 289 million subscribers. I also extend -- welcome to all of our various stakeholders, investors, the media, broader stakeholders who have joined us today to listen to the results that Tsholo and I have the pleasure of presenting on behalf of the staff, who've done a sterling job in executing on our strategy. I missed a period of a challenging macroeconomic backdrop that Tsholo and I will take you through. Earlier today, we released the SENS, the stock exchange announcements, which gives a lot of detail. I trust that you started to work through it. We also released a joint announcement between MTN Group and MTN Zakhele Futhi. MTN Zakhele Futhi is a key component of MTN. It underpins our transformation our B-BBEE level 1, which both group and SA have enjoyed over several years. And we're making a proposal to our shareholders at an EGM that we anticipate will be held around the 14th of October to extend the scheme from the 8 years to 11 years, ending 2027. More of that between now and the October 14 EGM date. Tsholo and I will anticipate over the 50 minutes or so to really land 6 key messages. The 6 key messages that we want to leave in terms of how we've assessed the performance and the outlook. The very first point is we are seeing very strong commercial momentum within our business. If you look at how we're adding subscribers, how we're seeing usage in the core connectivity business, we're seeing very healthy growth there. In the fintech business, we're again seeing very healthy growth in terms of the transaction volumes that we're seeing, those are up 9.7 billion transaction in the period. We're seeing good monthly active usage. And then we're also seeing the merchant ecosystem expand, and it's expanded by almost 50% to 2.3 million merchants across. And so for both data and fintech, which are the big growth drivers for the business in the medium to longer term, we had pleasing service revenue growth data 21% and fintech at 27%. So we make the first call out that there is a underlying strong, sustained commercial momentum across our businesses. The second point we make is that we're seeing a pleasing continued expansion of the fintech ecosystem. I mentioned earlier on, the growth in transaction volumes. We've seen also very healthy growth in transaction value across the platform. What is a standout in this reporting period has really been about the growth of the advanced services. We've spoken about basic services and advanced services. The advanced services are around remittance, payments and banktech. Those have grown very strongly. In aggregate, Advanced Services grew at 58% year-on-year. So the case for the fintech business and its transformation is coming through in the results. On other strategic initiatives, we said we will do certain things. We have done them. The first is really around localization. We have localization requirements across a couple of markets, driven by regulatory requirements. So in Uganda, the regulatory requirements so that there should be 20% local ownership, we've met that regulatory requirements. And the last further sell-down of MTN Uganda yielded gross proceeds of about ZAR 1 billion equivalent, and we've taken that regulatory compliance. In Ghana, we are looking to meet two very different regulatory requirements of local ownership for the core GSM business, there's a 25% local ownership. But because we have a substantial fintech business, the Bank of Ghana is looking for 30% local ownership. And again, we've made good progress there in the period, further sell-downs there, yielding about ZAR 700 million of gross proceeds. So we have about 2 percentage points of further localization to meet the fintech requirement as well there. So on localizations, good progress. We said we would look to simplify the business. We have the framing of portfolio optimization. In the half, we concluded the exit of Afghanistan, orderly exit to an M1 associate vehicle that we sold -- the business. And we announced post the period end, the exit of Guinea Bissau. We have been in talks with Telecel to exit Guinea Bissau and Guinea-Conakry, progress now made on Bissau, the dialogue on Conakry with Telecel and the authorities in the market continue. We also made a statement that with the Mastercard transaction, what we wanted to do is try and bring in the commercial benefits, particularly in issuance and acceptance. We're beginning to roll out across 7 markets that partnership going into Q4 in early part of next year, we should see the results of that partnership really driving forward the advanced services that we spoke about. So on some of the key strategic initiatives, we're seeing good progress. This resilient underlying performance has been masked by some macro challenges to be clear. And those macro challenges come into our reported results. Now Tsholo will take us through in quite a bit of detail, but there are 2 main drivers that are dampening the very strong underlying performance in this period. The first is the significant and sharp devaluation of the naira. The naira was order of magnitude before May last year, around NGN 460. In June, there was liberalization of exchange rates and the naira went to about NGN 770, closed the year at NGN 907. And we had quite a lot of volatility in the naira, particularly between January, February and March. And we've seen the naira average across the first half at about [ NGN 1,500 ]. Those currency shocks have impacted our reported earnings, as you'll see a little later on. But actually, the underlying growth in Nigeria, when you look at the top line, how we are building up the customer base, et cetera, remains very strong. So naira devaluation in particular, is the first call out. The second call out is Sudan. In Sudan, as we are seeing all the geopolitical developments. Sudan for us, at MTN is a very worrying situation about a humanitarian crisis that's unfolding on the continent as we sit here today. We have many Sudanese people displaced from their homes. The war is intensifying in a place like Khartoum and many people have moved into different areas and actually many people are in the diaspora. Our own management team are managing that business out of Cairo. We have some of our staff also out in Dubai. So we had a period of -- in March and in April, where the network was actually down. We've started to restore the network. And as we exited July, the revenue growth that we're seeing now exiting July, having restored the network is where we were in January before the intensive fighting that was in and around Khartoum. Sudan had an impact in our results, both at the top line level, voice and data. It shaved off some of the kind of organic growth would normally see, but also we brought in an impairment of about ZAR 3.8 billion that Tsholo will talk to. So those are the big macro challenges that have masked a strong underlying operating momentum that we've seen in the business. The fifth point, financial flexibility and resilience. We've done a lot in the last couple of years to really put the balance sheet in good shape. Many of you remember where the Holdco balance sheet was 80% dollar-denominated debt. It's now about 22%, so we've been able to use the proceeds from the upstreaming to change the mix of the debt that we hold at the center, giving the business more resilience, less mismatch of our debt profile versus the earnings that we had and Tsholo and the team very well a job very well done in changing the debt mix. We closed off the period with Holdco leverage at 1.6x. So just slightly above our target of 1.5x. But I think the really important point is the debt mix has changed and much more healthy, and we're able to do a decent amount of cash upstreaming in the half, ZAR 6.5 billion, and we cleared some of the outstanding dividends from Nigeria H1 '23, that's been cleared as part of the ZAR 6.5 billion and Tsholo will give us more detail. Final point encouraged by the underlying operational momentum and our ability to manage some of the headwinds that we're seeing in the near term, the Board is comfortable to maintain the medium-term guidance. The Board still anticipates a ZAR 3.3 dividend for FY 2024. We have an annual dividend guidance now. So we don't have an interim dividend. So that as -- in more recent periods, the final declaration would be in March of next year. And under current outlook and assumptions and our own solvency and assessment, we feel comfortable with that ZAR 3.3 going forward. So just a couple of the commercial highlights that I spoke about at a high level. We see data traffic grew very strongly in the period. We're now carrying about 9,000 petabytes of data across our network. That's a data traffic increase of about just under 36%. Active data users are now at 150 million and monthly usage has moved up very strongly, now, it's about 10.5%. Smartphone penetration, which is not on this slide, is now, we're almost the 2/3 of our customers are now on our network, some of them using smartphone data regularly. Some we still need to encourage to start using data more regularly. And then on the fintech, similar directional progress of strong transaction volumes. The active merchants, as I mentioned, 1.5 prior period, 2.3 million. Ultimately, you want ubiquity of merchants. So our customers can go anywhere and they're able to transact. So that's a KPI, I watch very closely, because it is about the democratization of financial services and ubiquity of what we deliver as MTN. So pleasing progress both on data and fintech, the underlying drivers of growth in the near to medium term. Tsholo will come through and give us more detail on the financials, but just a couple of key call outs. On constant currency service revenue at 12.1%. Tsholo will show you that actually, when we strip out the effect of Sudan on constant currency at 12.1% to 13.6%. Now a big compression in the service revenue has been actually that Nigeria used to be a much more significant part of the constant currency formula. So if you take out the translation impact of the naira, i.e., kind of normalize it, actually, service revenue growth was about 18%. So it speaks to the point that I said underlying growth remains pretty strong. And as I mentioned, data and fintech service revenue. The currency effects and the ongoing conflict in Sudan, that's really had an impact on the earnings side. So we see a compression on headline earnings of about 50.5%. Tsholo, again, will try and give you a normalized view, which looks to strip out the effect of the naira devaluing sharply in such a large quantum, and it gives you, again, a better underlying performance sense of how the business is actually doing organically. I spoke to the balance sheet elements, again, fairly resilient. Operating free cash flow under ZAR 10 billion and adjusted ROE at 20%. Coming into the operational review of the markets and maybe starting with South Africa as usual, a couple of key call outs. The performance in H1 is a tale of 2 quarters. The first quarter had some load shedding as we were completing our own network resilience investment. And the second quarter we're able to exit Q2 actually with network availability above 99%. So Charles and the team, who've done a significant job much of last year and the first quarter of this year. We can say the investment in network resilience has been completed. We spent in total ZAR 4.6 billion towards ensuring that our circa 13,000 sites all have battery backup power with enough autonomy. We're seeking a 6-, 8-hour autonomy. And in some of the sites, particularly the hub sites, we have further backup power in terms of gensets where we are able to. We're putting solar on rooftops to have a mix of backup power. And obviously, in the second half and moving into Q3, load shedding has not been an issue for us with the Eskom grid kind of holding up steady. But the load shedding story and the issues around the network, having availability issue because of power. I think Charles and team have done a sterling job in terms of dealing with that actually in about 5 quarters from a standing start. The other call out in the market context has really been about inflation. Inflation relatively has remained a little bit elevated. But I guess when you look at it relative to other markets, it's quite moderate. The key call out market is the consumer is under pressure, particularly in the lower end. And I think you see it in some of the numbers, particularly around our prepaid business, we're seeing a bit of pressure there. Charles will talk about -- if you have any questions around that, Charles in the room and can answer that. But our key activities were really around investing in the network. So we put ZAR 4.6 billion of CapEx in the period into the network. ZAR 1.6 million of that is the last stub of the network resilience. So as we go into H2, all the CapEx is really about network capacity and coverage as we go along and picking up our 5G investments, which were pulled back a bit as we had directed that investment towards resilience. So ZAR 3 billion purely on network and IT. We worked on price optimizations in the period in February. We brought some tariff increases to postpaid. So that was February. We've looked at our prepaid portfolio, firstly, looking to simplify it, but also as we exited end of H1 in June and in July, we started to look at some bundles and looking at price optimization on the prepaid. And so the effects of that or not anywhere in the numbers for SA, you'll see that in terms of H2 and I would caution that you see more of it coming out of in Q4 rather than Q3 as we're looking to optimize some of those prepaid bundles. And as I said, Charles is here to take questions around that. The service revenue development in South Africa has been encouraging. Q1 was 3%, Q2 3.6%, so a nice progression on service revenue there, so that we end the period at 3.3% [indiscernible] is doing well. I think the pressure we're seeing is more around prepaid where we see the consumer there a little bit under pressure. In terms of Nigeria, you'd have seen a detailed presentation from Karl and the team on the Nigeria results. So I'll just pick up the key highlights. Three main points on market context. First is the devaluation that I mentioned, a very sharp devaluation, particularly in Q1. It stabilized somewhat, and we'll talk about that in the outlook, how we see that. Inflation has picked up, though the latest inflation prints are suggesting it may have peaked. It seems the efforts of the Central Bank to tighten rates is beginning to work, but elevated inflation has been a big part, and we see that in our cost base, you'll see the analysis from Tsholo. And we had to navigate the NIN SIM registration. We took a zero tolerance on subscriber registration and actually early terminated many of our subscribers and the deadlines have been extended somewhat. But those were the 3 main market context issues that Karl and the team had to contend within the period. What are we focused on? We're focused on what we call the 5-point plan internally, which are the set of initiatives that are going to improve the negative equity position that the business found itself as of the end of the year. And those 5 being advocating for a tariff increase through the industry body renegotiating our tower contracts with IHS and ATC, looking to reduce the LCs that we still needed to pay down. We spoke about expense efficiencies and we reduced CapEx. So in terms of what we achieved in that 5-point plan, I think there are a couple of ticks there. LCs brought down. It was about $400 million at the end of last year. That's all kind of [ $100 million ] and lower as of the half. So cleared the balance of that. So good progress there. We've managed to keep the CapEx envelope relatively tight. We've had the ability to have radio planning to manage some of the demand that we're seeing, as you can see in Nigeria, data grew at 50% -- 42.6% -- data growth has been very, very healthy in Nigeria. As I mentioned, the underlying trends there we see are very, very pleasing. So we've managed a very tight CapEx envelope. But most importantly, we spent a big chunk of the time engaging with ATC and IHS to try and find win-win-win solutions in terms of these tower contracts. And to Karl and the team, who've spent a big part of the last 7 months to and fro. These are very complex agreements to work through in kind of normal circumstances. And my thanks to the team for having made a substantial amount of progress. Just talking about the tower agreements, we announced the successful conclusion with ATC and IHS with our trading statement on the seventh of August. Now I know that the market, we have many on the buy side and the sell side, we want a lot more detail. The first thing, I mean, these contracts are confidential. And there are many questions you'd like to ask us, and we won't answer them, not because we don't want to, we don't have the answer, but because they are confidential. However, what we're trying to do here is to give you a frame of what the impacts are without breaking any confidentialities. And so we are -- I'll just share some of the salient features, what was before and after and then I'll follow up with the slide on pro forma financial effects. And as I said, these are confidential agreements. There are many questions you'd like to ask, and we won't be able to answer them to honor the confidentiality. But the salient points are as follows: with IHS, we have signed binding terms that are effective the 1st of April 2024. We have escalations, the escalations have reduced with caps in them, particularly the naira inflation. There is a cap on the naira inflation. We spoke a lot about this in the past that we wanted to have tower arrangements that were not technology-based pricing, but more about space and power. So all the upgrades are now going to be about moving from technology-based pricing towards space and power, which is a lot more conventional with space and power with ATC. We actually have space and power with IHS here in South Africa. And there are some additional discounts that post 2025 with IHS, we'll be able to benefit from those discounts go from 2025 all the way up to 2032. The absolute amount of those discounts, you can see we haven't put them, but we didn't have those discounts before. And the base rates at which we're converting previously dollar-denominated expenses is [ 1,050 ]. That's the base rate at which that conversion happens on the 1st of April. And you can well imagine that the rates 1 April would have been a number which was prevailing in 1 April. For those who pull out your calculators, that number, you'll see was more like [ 1,500 ]. So there's a bit of a benefit there that helps us in terms of the economic profile. The bottom part of the chart, what we're trying to illustrate is the before and after in terms of mix of U.S. dollar-denominated, Naira Indexed and Naira Diesel Indexed. Naira diesel is at the pump is a Naira, so it gets invoiced. And obviously, it will have some correlation to crude prices, which are dollar-denominated, but at the pump in Nigeria, it's a Naira and there's a base rate. So what you can see clearly there is that before 55% to 65% was Dollar Indexed, the Naira Indexation 35% to 40%. The 0% to 5% in terms of Diesel Indexation, that's more ATC previously with IHS, that number would have been 0%, but when you blend IHS and ATC, the number looks more like 0% to 5% on an aggregate basis. But what does it look like now? So the Dollar Indexation, pure Dollar Indexation has moved now to 35% to 40%. You've got a slightly larger component of naira and then the Naira Diesel in terms of the kind of blended average, and this is both IHS and ATC. We're moving to space and power. The power is indexed to the Naira Diesel Indexation and then the space is again completely to Naira. So it's giving us a much healthier from our perspective, mix of dollars versus naira. And when we look at the financial effects, again, these are pro forma illustrative views. So at the EBITDA margin level, 9 months -- on a 9-month view, it has a benefit of 3 to 4 percentage points in Nigeria. If you annualize it and keep it very simple, the math, 9 months and annualize it to 4, 12 months. there is obviously seasonality effects here. So we're just keeping the math simple here. So you'd be looking at somewhere between 4% to 5%. The cash flow, we look at it, obviously, it's naira payments, 9 months NGN 75 billion to NGN 85 billion, annualized NGN 100 billion. And the sensitivity, you will remember the sensitivity was more like 1.3 for every 10 percentage points because as you saw in the last slide, the clear dollar component has reduced. So you're seeing a slightly more muted impact on sensitivity naira. Obviously, this is off a base of around NGN 1,500-odd to the USD. So the sensitivity is somewhere between 0.5 percentage point and 1%. As I mentioned, and I said for the third and final time of these agreements are confidential. You guys would like to ask us a lot of questions. What we will do with our Q3 release of Nigeria results is to grow through it in extensive detail where the P&L effects. I'm talking about EBITDA, but you want to work this thing through all the way to PAT. There's quite a bit that happens at finance cost as an example. So we will do that with the release of the Nigeria results at the end of October to work through the P&L effects, also the balance sheet and cash flow effect. So this should give you some framing of why we see that renegotiate as having been successful. The negotiation -- this tower renegotiation of the leases does not -- is not a silver bullet to solve the negative equity position. The big issue that we continue to engage on is really around tariff increase, and I'll talk about this a little bit later. Moving on from Nigeria markets. We've seen very pleasing growth in the SEA business, headed up by Yolanda. We've seen very good growth on data and fintech. Uganda continues to be a very strong business all around. You saw the top line growth, very strong cash generation, stable margin from that business. Rwanda dealing with some regulatory challenges around mobile termination rates, and that's impacted us on the connectivity side, the fintech side within Rwanda growing very strong and healthy. And as we always say, SEA is the business where we see the potential of fintech more generally, 29% of service revenue is coming a -- total service revenue for SEA is actually coming out of the fintech. On the WECA side, again, also a pleasing growth for both data and fintech revenue. Ghana's results, you'd have seen, but very pleasing growth on data revenue, 55%; fintech, 38%. We had price-ups on data that's helped sustain the healthy data revenue here. And the fintech business continues to grow very strongly. Cameroon, a solid set of results, some competitive challenges we've seen and regulatory challenges, particularly around the ability for CVM Cote d'Ivoire there. But again, fintech showing a healthy contribution of 20%. MENA has been a story really around Sudan. As I mentioned earlier on, where the performance has been impacted by the ongoing conflict and actually, our network being off air for a considerable amount of time. As I mentioned, we've exited now Afghanistan. We have 2 months of numbers of Afghanistan in the half. But that -- we've concluded the orderly exit. The joint venture in Irancell continues to grow quite strongly, growing 82%. Given U.S. sanctions, we still have money trapped there, about ZAR 3 billion of accumulated dividends at current exchange rates still there. And Snapp, the so-called Uber of the Middle East, there is still growing at a very healthy clip, at 4.6 million daily rides. There's a big Snapp ecosystem that's built around ride-hailing that is actually quite impressive within that market. On fintech, again, talking about the -- what's giving us confidence around the system -- ecosystem expansion. As I mentioned, strong transaction volume growth. You see the banktech loan value growing just under 53%. Payment and e-commerce, I mentioned the merchants, gross merchandise value, up 20.2%. Remittances, opening up new remittance corridors and that's up 20 -- just under 27% in the period, 573 -- 577 inbound corridors that we now have access to and remittance is a big opportunity that we're obviously looking to leverage over time. Before I pass on to Tsholo, I'll come back with outlook and priorities, just kind of marking our own homework in terms of the half against our medium-term guidance. The 12.1%, we still think it's an amber because of the underlying issues that I spoke to and which Tsholo will explain when you look at it Sudan as well as the Nigeria translation. South Africa, as I mentioned, a tale of 2 halves, 3% in Q1, 3.6%, so we saw an acceleration in service revenue in the second half of the year, and pretty much good progress around asset realization and Tsholo will take us through the ROE. I'll pause here and ask Tsholo to come and take us through the financials, and I'll come back with outlook and priorities.

Thank you very much, Ralph. A very good afternoon to everyone that is joining us today. Ralph has shared with you the operating context under which we have been operating a macro context under which we have operated. And I'm really pleased to share with you the resilience of our financial performance under these tough circumstances. But before I do that, I think it is important to just really highlight some of the significant items that impacted our results. And as you can see from a macro perspective, firstly, the sharp devaluation of the naira resulted in higher operating cost by ZAR 3.2 billion as well as the FX losses of ZAR 13.8 billion coming through on our finance charges line. In total, we had about ZAR 16.2 billion from a group perspective on these FX losses. We also had the effects of the foreign exchange translation impact on our reported currency results in this regard, based on a number of key subsidiaries, in particular, Nigeria. The translation effects reduced our bottom line by about ZAR 5.6 billion. Secondly, in terms of the key macro impacts, we recorded losses amounting to about ZAR 300 million from MTN Sudan, as Ralph has indicated, we're still seeing some challenges from an ongoing conflict perspective. And I'll just illustrate some of these as I go along. And I think just turning into the accounting effects on the right-hand side, if you recall, we had reported previously that MTN Nigeria's results included a restatement on the interim financials of 2023 arising from the revision of FX losses, unrealized FX losses relating to IFRS 16. So at a high level, the impact on group result was on profit after tax with a restatement of ZAR 6.7 billion. And in terms of earnings per share, that was about 282 million as you can see -- [ ZAR 2.82 ] per share. And then in terms of the impairments that we recorded, MTN Sudan and Ayo Group recorded ZAR 4.2 billion in total in terms of impairment as we've been indicating from Sudan perspective, it was about ZAR 3.8 billion roughly due to the continuing conflict that we are seeing. We also recorded just under ZAR 200 million, about ZAR 140 million in terms of impairment with regards to the remeasurement on the noncurrent assets held for sale. But we also saw a gain on disposal in terms of Afghanistan. As you recall that we disposed of Afghanistan earlier in this year. And I think this impact you will see coming through on our expenses, our EBITDA as well as our headline earnings per share. Now if we go into the details of our financial performance, starting with the salient points on the group income statement, you see that we delivered service revenue growth in constant currency of 12.1%. And on a reported basis, service revenue declined by 20.8% and largely due to the translation impacts that we mentioned earlier. And I will unpack this in a bit more detail in the following slide. And then in terms of EBITDA before once-off, we saw a marginal decrease of 0.4 percentage in constant currency as a result of the overall headwinds on the top line, but also upward cost pressures that we are seeing. So consequently, we reported a decline of 4.4 percentage points on our EBITDA margin of 36.5%. And on a reported EBITDA in absolute rent terms increased -- declined, sorry by 41%. If you move on to depreciation, you will see that on a reported basis decreased by 7.2%, really reflecting the translation effect, but on an underlying basis, depreciation was driven by CapEx additions as well as the spectrum acquisitions. With regards to net finance charges, which include FX losses, we saw an increase in constant currency of 106%, but an increase of 3.5% year-on-year on a reported basis to ZAR 23 billion, and I will unpack this also in a bit more detail later on. When you look at the share of results of associates and joint ventures, you can see stellar performance with a growth of 88%, and this was really benefited from the strong contribution from Irancell, our JV, which saw a growth of 160% year-on-year in constant currency and about 82% growth in constant currency. In terms of income tax expense, we saw a decline of 84%, and this was as a result of the major impact on our reported profits that declined largely caused by the losses that we recorded in MTN Nigeria and Sudan in the main. Then the profile that you see on the interest of noncontrolling shareholders was mainly due to these losses that I've also mentioned. And at bottom line from an adjusted headline earnings per share, we saw a decline of 50%, and I will also unpack this movement later on in a different slide. In terms of our ROE, we saw a return -- we reported a return of 20%, which was a reduction of 4.2 percentage points relative to last year, which was owing to the lower earnings that I've mentioned before. Now I think it's important -- before I get into the service revenue bearers of our business, just to unpack the vertical, just to unpack and take you through on this slide some of the illustrative view of our service revenue if we adjust for these significant items that have impacted on our results. In particular, these include the Sudan conflict as well as the hyperinflationary impact in South Sudan as well as Ghana, but we also reflect here the impact of the devaluation of the currencies, most currencies against the ZAR, which is our reporting currency and most significantly, the devaluation of the naira. So you can see that the major call out here is actually the translation impact of about ZAR 38 billion, of which Nigeria makes up about ZAR 36.5 billion, really reflecting this naira depreciation against ZAR, which was on average about 181% year-on-year. So if you really aggregate these significant impacts, they had about 38.9 percentage points impact on our service revenue growth, which was really a decline of 20.8% that I mentioned on a reported basis. So the slide demonstrate that has -- had these headwinds not materialized, the service revenue would have been at around 18% year-on-year. If I can then move on to our group service revenue bearers. As you can see from a voice perspective, we continue to see -- we've seen a decline of 0.4%, largely impacted by voice substitution in South Africa. We also saw from an Ivory Coast perspective being affected by the cable cuts that took place in the first quarter of this year, but also Ivory Coast is faced with intensifying competition as well as some regulatory headwinds. Some disruptive competitive pressure also were experienced in Benin and Rwanda in the main. Now if you look at our data, you will see that it is the largest contributor to group service revenue with a growth of 21%, really driven by strong data traffic growth in our markets, again, also underpinned by the continued investment that we are making on our network. Fintech continued its strong growth momentum with service revenue growth of 27%, which is in line with the medium-term target. You would recall that we have now revised the medium-term target on fintech service revenue to a high 20s to low 30s range. Other, which includes SMS enterprise and ICT also showed a good growth mainly coming from Nigeria and SA, and I will share that also later. Overall, if we excluded MTN Sudan, the group delivery on service revenue would have been 13.6% in constant currency. Now if I can just briefly touch on the performance of SA and Nigeria, our 2 large markets and just starting with South Africa, it delivered service revenue growth of 3.3% year-on-year, really continuing to navigate a challenging macroeconomic environment. So where did this revenue come from? Largely came from data revenue, which rose by 2.4% year-on-year. We saw a good growth as well from fintech of about 59%, driven mainly by airtime advances, but also the expansion of fintech offerings through targeted initiatives. As I indicated, South Africa also delivered very good growth on enterprise in terms of bulk SMS and ICT, largely from main deals, a growth of 26% year-on-year. The growth in this service revenue bearers were, however, offset by the decline in voice of about 6.1%, although reflecting continued improvement in the overall trend during this period. And this outcome was also underpinned by the continued improvement in our network availability as well as MTN SA's commercial initiatives. If we can just look at the expenses from South Africa, you'll see that the growth year-on-year was 4.4% with cost of sales growing by 7.4%, and this was largely driven by devices and commissions as they continue to drive channel expansion. Operating expenditure was very well managed during the period with a growth of just 0.6% year-on-year. And this really enabled them to expand their margin with EBITDA growth of 4.3% excluding the once-off gain on disposal of SA Tower. In this performance, however, as we've indicated, there is the benefit of the sale from the sale of the insurance receivables amounting to just over ZAR 200 million, which is reported in other income. Excluding this benefit, the EBITDA would have increased by 2% with a margin of 35.7%. However, South Africa did continue to execute on the expense efficiency program, realizing a saving of about ZAR 500 million during the period. If I move on to Nigeria. And as we indicated, I won't dwell over Nigeria, most of you will have seen the results coming from Nigeria on the 30th of July. Nigeria delivered strong performance with service revenue growth of 32.4% in constant currency, in line with the prevailing inflation in Nigeria as well as in line with the medium-term target. The result was supported by strong performance from most of their service revenue bearers. Very briefly, we saw voice growing by 12% in Nigeria, mainly on base growth, but also higher usage driven by continued CVM initiatives. We saw data very, very strong, also growing by 55%, boosted by data bundle revamps as well as optimization. Again, a good growth from enterprise, which grew by 27%. If you look at the expenses, these were up 82% in constant currency. And within that mix, cost of sales grew by 34%, growing slightly above inflation and service Revenue. However, impacted by the naira devaluation was a significant increase on the operating expenses, which went up 107% year-on-year, really impacted by the network expenses, and other drivers of higher OpEx was mainly the introduction of the VAT on tower leases, which was introduced in the last quarter last year as well as elevated CPI adjustment on lease rentals and higher energy costs. So as a result of these higher operating expenses, growing faster than the revenue, the EBITDA margin declined by 17.4 percentage points to now 35.7%. So if we had to adjust for these combined effects of ForEx with an impact of 15.3 percentage points as well as the VAT on the tower leases with an impact of about 2.7 percentage points, the EBITDA margin would have been at about 54%. In terms of capital expenditure, MTN Nigeria spent ZAR 1.9 billion, and this was with a CapEx intensity of 9.4%, and this is -- 9.4%, and this is excluding leases. As we communicated previously, MTN Nigeria did streamline their CapEx plan, in order to manage the cash flows, but more importantly as well, enabling them to accelerate the settlement of the dollar-denominated obligation. So this exposure that we're able to reduce quite significantly since December from about $417 million to now about around $100 million. So when you look at the Nigeria performance overall, they delivered solid underlying performance despite a very challenging macro environment. If we can move on to fintech. You saw fintech grew by 27% in the period as we continued to scale up our mobile financial services with towers and transfer services which still make up the bulk of the contribution to group service revenue grew by 20% and 22%, respectively, very pleasing is the growth that we are seeing on advanced services, which rose by about 58%, really coming from payments and e-commerce, which grew by 37% in the period. Banktech and remittance, although still nascent, growing by 73% as well as 39%, respectively. So as we can see on the right-hand side, basic services, still contribute meaningfully to group fintech service revenue, although a reduction from 62% to now 59% in terms of contribution, while Advanced Services contribution increased by 5 percentage points, and this aligns with our stated objective to move more towards a more advanced services in terms of the revenue mix. You'll also see that the strong top line performance was supported by the continued efficiency initiatives to really drive improvement on the EBITDA margin within our target range, which we have communicated previously as our target range of mid 30s to high 30 percentage. If I move on to our group expenses now just giving you a bit more detail. The total expenses grew by 20.3% to ZAR 59 billion, with group cost of sales up 12% largely driven by the increases in commissions in our GSM fintech as well as digital businesses. In particular, we saw an increase in interconnect roaming cost as well as largely due to increased traffic volumes, but also the impacts of the FX devaluations, mainly in Nigeria had an impact on the cost of sales line. Looking at our operating expenses, you will notice that we saw an increase of 28% year-on-year. And the main driver of OpEx growth was really coming from our network expenses, which you can see on the right, grew by 58% -- around 58%, contributing almost 18% of the total cost. Approximately 80% of the network expenses growth was driven by Nigeria due to the increased site rollout, a spike in inflation as well as the FX devaluation impacts. In other markets, the main cost pressures varied and mostly other coming from higher energy cost as well. We also saw an increase on our staff cost in terms of about 11%, but this was well below our blended average inflation of about 14.1%, but the main drivers were really coming from an increase in head count as we continue to scale up our platform businesses. Annual salary increases were really in line with inflation across all of our markets. If we can then move on to the next slide, just to indicate that it is very important for us to continue to try and cap the headwinds that we are seeing. And we continue with our expense efficiency program. We delivered ZAR 2.4 billion in expense efficiencies in this period with 35% of the savings, as you can see on the pie charts recorded at head office, and this was followed by SA then WECA as well as the SEA regions. By area, these savings were largely coming from network and IT, contributing 34%, staff cost optimization contributing about 35% -- 31%. You will also notice that on the right-hand side, we provide a view of how our total cost as a percentage of revenue has evolved. It has increased by almost 4 percentage points since the last period, but this really reflects the pressure that we are feeling through the tough macro environment, particularly the naira devaluation. So you'll notice that the network expenses as a percentage of revenue has increased from 13.3% to now almost 18%, while other operating expenses has slightly declined or remaining constant year-on-year. So this really indicates just the impacts on our network cost due to the macro impacts. We are continuing with our expense efficiency program, and we have communicated previously that we will deliver ZAR 7 billion to ZAR 8 billion over the 3 years from 2024 onwards, as I've indicated, we've now been able to deliver ZAR 2.4 billion. And those are the initiatives of the -- on the bottom right that we continue to execute on amongst ones. If I can just move on to the finance cost breakdown. You will notice that our net interest was steady during the period, reflecting repayments on borrowing mainly coming from Nigeria as well as Uganda. The average cost of borrowing has gone up to 12.8% from 10.8%, and this is mainly as a result of the higher interest rate environment across most of our markets. The decline in finance lease costs to ZAR 3.3 billion was largely due to the translation effect. So net finance costs on an underlying basis, including leases decreased to ZAR 6.7 billion from ZAR 7.4 billion last year. The big call out on this slide is the ForEx losses, which amounted to ZAR 16.2 billion, as I indicated, of which ZAR 13.7 billion of debt on your right-hand side came from Nigeria. There were some FX losses at head office and these were largely due to FX impacts from cash upstreaming mainly from Ghana as well as Nigeria. If I can move on to our adjusted headline earnings per share. Firstly, a reminder that the 2023 figures have been restated as a result of the FX-related restatements in Nigeria that I mentioned earlier. So on this basis, you'll see that our attributable earnings per share moved into a loss of ZAR 4.09, reflecting the lower earnings that I mentioned earlier. This outcome was also impacted by the impairment of assets and losses on remeasurement of the disposal groups totaling about ZAR 1.53. After adjusting for these items, our reported headline earnings was a loss of ZAR 2.56. The main impact on basic headline earnings came from hyperinflationary impacts about ZAR 0.57 per share as well as FX losses totaling a ZAR 5.19 per share of which ZAR 3.89 of that came from the naira devaluation during the period. So if we adjust for these nonoperating items -- nonoperational items, you will notice that adjusted headline earnings was down 50% to ZAR 3.37. So I think it's important on the next slide, just to highlight these translation effects that mainly affected our headline earnings per share -- adjusted headline earnings per share by 50%, as I mentioned. So settling back to the factors impacting our financial results, this analysis illustrated at headline earnings per share level, you'd recall that I showed you a similar slide on service revenue analysis earlier. So similarly, this slide shows the outcome if we were to adjust for the effect of Sudan impairment -- sorry the effects of Sudan performance, the FX impacts on our cost in particular in Nigeria as well as the translation effects of translating into our reporting currency, the South African Rand. So on this basis, adjusted headline earnings would have been ZAR 7.89 per share versus the ZAR 3.73 that you are seeing. So this represents a growth of 6.9% versus the prior year. So again, the biggest impact, as you can see, is the FX devaluation in our key markets against the ZAR with naira being the significant -- the most significant from the devaluation. So ZAR 3.1 of which ZAR 2.83 per share came from Nigeria. If I can just move on to our capital expenditure. Briefly, we capitalized ZAR 13.4 billion, excluding leases with CapEx intensity of about 15%. And this is in the range that we target of between 15% and 18%. By market, you will see on the right-hand side that 34% came from South Africa as they completed their comprehensive network resilience plan, 14% came from Nigeria, as I did mention that there was some streamlining of capital expenditure in Nigeria as they continue to work through their dollar applications. A combined 47% of our CapEx was deployed from other markets SEA and WECA in line with our capital allocation framework as we continue to invest in faster growth areas. By type, you will see that we spent about 74% in terms of investment in networks. And then IT was mainly about 26%, which is really also to support the scaling up of our platform businesses. Just to touch on our free cash flow analysis and maybe to note that we have evolved our disclosure on this slide to better show the free cash flow analysis rather than the accounting cash flow record that we used to provide. So from the waterfall, you can see that our operating free cash flow declined by about 56% year-on-year to around ZAR 10 billion, this mainly reflects the pressure on our earnings. As you can see, our reported EBITDA at ZAR 29.9 billion, relative to what we had last year. Working capital also had an impact with outflows of ZAR 7.4 billion. And in the main, this was largely due to trade receivables in various markets at various parts of the business due to some economic pressure in some of the markets. There were also -- there were prepayments to vendors to try and mitigate the FX volatility. We also saw some offsets in terms of working capital from trade receivables, mainly coming from Nigeria as they continue to manage the availability of FX liquidity. We also made payments for leases at ZAR 3.8 billion. And then in terms of capital expenditure payments ZAR 14 billion, this is before the payments for spectrum and licenses of [ ZAR 777 million ], which was a lot lower than the payments we made last year. So after we've made payments for interest, net interest as well as taxes, of ZAR 5.7 billion as well as ZAR 5.8 billion, there was a net flow in terms of free cash flow of about ZAR 2.4 billion. So I said a bit of short-term pressure in terms of our cash flow profile, we are fully focused on initiatives to navigate the current headwinds that we are seeing and to deliver on our ambitions, and Ralph will be wrapping up and giving you just a view on some of the initiatives that we are looking at overall. If I move on to our leverage and liquidity profile before I hand back to Ralph, as you can see, despite the short-term pressure on free cash flow, our balance sheet remains strong with group net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.8x, which is well within our covenant limit of 2.5x. The slight regression in this ratio came from -- was due to softer EBITDA, as I've outlined earlier on. Our Holdco leverage is now at 1.6x, which is really broadly in line with our medium-term target. Yes, our medium-term target is 1.5x. And we are pleased that we have been able to maintain this given the [ flux ] of our macro -- in our macro environment. In terms of the underlying drivers of our Holdco leverage, it was negatively impacted by reduced cash balances given the dynamics I've explained earlier on, you'll also recall that we made a dividend distribution relating to 2023 in the first month in the -- early in the second quarter totaling about ZAR 6.2 billion. Our currency mix has assisted us in minimizing the impact of FX on our Holdco leverage. As Ralph said, we're now at 22%, which is well below our targeted mix that we target of about 40%. Our Holdco liquidity headroom also remains very healthy, at ZAR 30.4 billion with ZAR 11.5 billion of cash balances and the balance of ZAR 18.9 billion coming from [indiscernible] and [indiscernible] facilities. We must say that the debt market remains supportive to the group. We have been successful in refinancing some of our maturities under the MTN program as well as our banking facilities and we do remain committed in terms of early settlement of our dollar-denominated debt. With upstream gross cash of about ZAR 6.5 billion. As you can see from various OpCos as well during the period. And over and above that, as indicated, we have received proceeds from Ghana and Uganda in terms of localization, ZAR 1.7 billion. So overall, we do believe that our balance sheet is in a very good shape, underpinned by the continued discipline in our capital allocation framework. And this really enabled us to navigate these current macro environment and to support the execution of our strategy. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. I now hand over to Ralph.

Thanks very much, Tsholo, taking the stakeholders through our financial performance and giving you both the underlying performance as well as the reported results. As I said upfront that I think our underlying performance and the momentum is very encouraging for us, but we have had to deal with the impact of the shock of the naira devaluation, as well as the impacts of Sudan. So before we go to Q&A, maybe a final couple of closing points, the outlook. I think the operating environment we've been in, in the last couple of quarters has been really driven by global macro conditions and how they've translated into our region and specifically into our markets. And we've seen quite a lot of currency movements, which you see in our results, inflation elevating and actually growth being a lot more like lesser than people had anticipated. We're kind of looking forward and using sources that we believe are credible. So most of our data sources we use, I'm sure you all use your own models. We leverage IMF data sets. We often use Standard Bank Group Securities. They generally tend to be, on average, more accurate. There are people on the ground, and they actually -- we tend to see their forecast more closer to reality. So we have a blended view on what's here. And I think you can well imagine that when we plan, we plan more conservatively than what you see here just to make sure that if there are any shocks, we can actually absorb them. But I think the big main kind of global trends is if you look at developing markets is almost the peaking of inflation and the trend towards low inflation and the rate cutting cycle when you look at discussions in Europe and the U.S. That trend, we believe, will come into our markets. I think when you listen to commentary around where the [ stub ] is going to in South Africa, I mean, it gives you that sense that there is beginning to be a sense that inflation has somewhat peaked, and we should start to see rate cutting coming across. GDP growth is seen as likely in the medium term to start accelerating, particularly on the back of inflation coming through. And there are many views on currencies there that these are Standard Bank Group Securities view on closing exchange rates for the year. And we plan a bit more cautiously than what you see here. But I think it's more about the trend than the absolute number, which is suggesting that actually, we should start to see an easing of some of the headwinds. And so the strong underlying performance that we have should start coming back in the periods ahead into the reported results. So within that context of near-term continue some challenges, we're beginning to see some moderation on inflation, interest rates and so forth. What are our priorities for this year? The priorities we have are pretty much the same priorities we announced in March, and we continue to execute on those. Some of them, we can tick the box and say we've completed. We finished the network resilience. We remain on guard if I think we see a reversal of the national grid. What we know is if the national grid comes back to levels pre-Q2 at Stage 6 load shedding on network given the investment in resilience would be up over 95% given the mix of backup power that we have. So yes, we're happy with the situation with Eskom. But if that, for whatever reason, deteriorated, the network actually is resilient, and we've invested sufficiently. So as I mentioned earlier on, prepaid will be the focus for much of what Charles and team will be doing, and we'll continue to work on those 5-action points in Nigeria. There's no silver bullet of one of them. We need the combination of all of these to come through. A movement of [ NGN 100 ] either up or down is exceptionally sensitive all the way to PAT. And I think many of you would ask us, how do you see there are many moving parts. And I think it will be irresponsible for us to tell you, we think this is the single set of actions that will get us back to negative -- sorry, to resolve the negative equity. We've got to work on all of them, including continue the discussions really around the tariff increase with the authorities. And I think it's pressure not just only on us in Nigeria, you see it in Airtel's results. You see it in IHS as a result to sustain sufficient capital investment to support network and the significant growth, we believe that ultimately, we'll find ourselves with the authorities around that. In terms of the platform strategy, continuing to execute. We've spoken about issuance and acceptance, the 7 initiatives. We'll see these coming through Q4 into early parts of next year as we get traction in markets such as Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, and as well as Cote d'Ivoire that we're continuing to progress. The focus on expense efficiencies remains, as Tsholo said, we've made good progress, but we're still going to get all the way up to the ZAR 8 billion, and we're not going to pull back on that. TowerCo contracts, we've pretty much renegotiated all our tower contracts with IHS into 2030, into the next decade. So with IHS, we've done Rwanda, Zambia, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa and Nigeria. So that set of contracts into the next decade being completed, and we have our other TowerCo partners, they're not as big in our lives as IHS, but with ATC, we've also closed out in Nigeria, and we have ATC also in our footprint here in South Africa. Cash upstreaming, we continue that focus. On the debt profile, as Tsholo said, our capital allocation framework as managing the dollar exposures as priority #2. Priority #1 is investing in organic growth, which we'll continue to. We've set out and communicated again that although we've capitalized ZAR 13 billion, we still anticipate for full year to be in the ZAR 28 billion to ZAR 33 billion corridor of CapEx investments to support the growth that we see in the network and ensure that our business is in a strong position as we navigate and exit some of the much more pronounced headwinds that we've experienced in the last period. We have a stub of 2024 bonds, about ZAR 1.8 billion equivalent which we will settle as that stub matures in November. And the only bit of dollar debt that we'll have to deal with is the 2026. So again, good progress there. And so these are the initiatives that will continue to focus on executing to ensure that the commercial and underlying momentum that we see in the business is maintained. We continue to share this graph, which gives us the confidence and view that the structural growth opportunity for data and fintech services remains. We started showing this graph post COVID to show that this was not just a COVID dynamic. In our markets where the Internet connectivity is still relatively nascent and financial services, not as ubiquitous, we think that there is long-term growth that is evidenced by the kind of sequential growth that we continue to see in data traffic and fintech transaction volume, and we need to be able to -- for our shareholders to show that we can monetize this kind of growth that is quite unique to this continent as one looks at and compares with other jurisdictions. As I mentioned earlier on in my introductory remarks, the sixth important point was reconfirming the guidance. We are confirming the guidance that we've set out. Nothing has changed. We're still using the capital allocation framework, the same batting order that we've always had. From time to time, we get questions from our shareholders. At current share prices, don't you want to do a buyback now. It sends a message to investors that you believe the share is undervalued. We're saying we've taken those messages in. We've debated them with our advisers, we've debated them with our Board, and we feel the right allocation of capital is to the growth opportunity that we believe is structural and will continue to come through. So we're keeping our batting order of capital allocation pretty much the same, and I think you'll see share buybacks and specials right at the bottom of that list of top 5. And our focus is investing in networks and platforms, paying down the debt and then the dividend, which we are saying for FY '24, ZAR 3.3. The Board anticipates, we'll be able to meet that. And that's also within a CapEx envelope of the ZAR 28 billion to ZAR 33 billion for FY 2024. Ladies and gentlemen, that ends the presentation from Tsholo and myself. We do have Charles and Dineo in the room so they can take the heavy questions on South Africa. Just give Tsholo and I an opportunity to pass on some of the load. But happy and ask Tsholo to come on to stage, I think Thato also needs to come on to the stage. Charles and Dineo can stay seated in their lovely couches.

Thanks so much, Ralph and Tsholo for the overview, I think important to go through quite a lot of important stuff in terms of what's affecting our performance. We only have 10 minutes left in terms of the schedule. We will indulge an extra 5 or 10 minutes past the 5:00 just an apology in advance to those logging in on CNBC that does have a hard stop as we like to say in the corridors at about 5:00. So maybe let's just get into the questions. We will interact with many of you over the next few days and weeks. So you will have another opportunity to interact with Ralph and Tsholo.

So maybe let's just start with, as we usually do with questions in the room. And then we can get into the online platforms.

Hi, everyone. I think all my questions are for Dineo and Charles on South Africa. I guess if you can -- Charles, if you can touch on the SA prepaid recovery. Just struggling to find where your customer value proposition is versus your peers. Your peers are seeing a nice recovery in prepaid, but you are not necessarily seeing as weak of a recovery. What needs to happen on prepaid and what will you entice us with over the next 6 months? And then I guess on your pricing gap versus Telkom and Cell C, if you can comment on that. How has that evolved over the last few years? And then on Ambition 2025 EBITDA margin guidance, please, can you remind me of that guidance. I think the last time we had about 37% to 39%, but that obviously was during load shedding, and what should the margin -- how should the margins evolve beyond that?

Thank you so much, [ Louise ]. I think on the prepaid recovery, we put the price increases only in June and then going to July. And most of the price increases went into our internal channels. We expect that it will filter into the external channels, let's say, July and then August. You can expect to see a relatively recovering prepaid performance let's say, end of, let's say, towards September then into Q4. So we are comfortable that in terms of where we are, we're actually mark-to-market in terms of pricing. I mean I think in prepaid, to be honest, the propositions are practically the same. So I guess in the end, I think it will fit through in terms of our performance as well. You also asked a question around Telkom and Cell C. You want to check is this on wholesale? Or is this on consumer? No, look, I mean, we mark ourselves largely against VC, if I could be honest. I think if you check our prices we're largely comparable -- compared to Vodacom. We did the price increases more for more concept on some proposition, Some propositions, we went straight out and increase the ERM. So that's really our benchmark, I think, in terms of pricing, largely around the main competitor. And then in terms of the margin, I mean, we're still giving the push of 37% to 39%. We have a very tough H2. I mean it's a proper [indiscernible] coming in H2 that's why we're saying H2 will be slightly tougher. But we still remain focused on the guidance that we have given.

It's Preshen from Nedbank. I'll split the questions around. So one for Tsholo, one for Charles and one Ralph. Tsholo first for you, you didn't mention my favorite West African OpCo from upstreaming. So I just wanted to check if you did get anything out of Nigeria and at what rate? And obviously, contrary to that, if you didn't, why considering FX liquidity has improved quite considerably. One for Charles, your data subs grew 10%. Your traffic was up 35% but your revenue is only up 2.4%. And I compare that to Nigeria, where traffic was up 42%, users were up 10%, but they grew revenue 56%. So you're giving a lot more or a lot less is what I'm thinking, but just some clarity there. And then a question for you, Ralph, on Zakhele Futhi. Just some rationale behind extending that deal. My take is that the dividends were quite weak over the last few years. So is there a sense of a sizable liability there in Zakhele Futhi structure, which hasn't been cleared by the dividend. And by your forecast, the 3-year extension, is that the thinking behind that?

Yes. So I mean in terms of cash upstreaming from Nigeria, we have cleared the interim 2023 dividend. I think as you know, there was no dividend declared for financial year ending 2023, the full year dividend because of the negative equity. But the interim dividend was cleared, and we have been able to upstream that. It is in the ZAR 6.5 billion, as we've indicated.

Yes. And Presh, I mean, I think it's a good call. But let me lead by saying that come Q4, we should start to see a better year-on-year data performance from South Africa because we did mention in Q1 that we have this low back on the extra time that we are doing this affecting the data performance. So that's just to start on data performance. On the traffic profiling, you're right. ADS is strong, revenue is 2.4% and data is growing at 35% or so percent. So you're right. But let me unpack it a little bit. So if you segment the usage, you will see that the mobile traffic, let's talk about prepaid to be specific, is about only 9% increase in data traffic on prepaid. So that is slightly aligned with the revenue performance overall, where we have pressure is on the FWA traffic profile. We grew the proposition of home quite aggressively. And I think there isn't really was just to build the home base. We think we have done a fantastic job so far. And I think going forward we try to optimize and find a way to make sure that the usage does not exceed the plan. So think of it this way, data should grow, let's say into Q4 on the prepaid side as well. But the FWA, which is the biggest contributor of the traffic growth, we'll try and manage that profile going forward. But we really were deliberate because we wanted to actually get a bit of share in terms of fixed wireless access.

Yes. On the question on the Zakhele Futhi. I mean we've been in discussions between the MTN Group Board and Zakhele board around the unwind, which is coming in -- or scheduled for November of this year for the 8 year. And on reflecting on where the scheme is and also referencing the very sharp unique devaluation of the naira at this particular point in time, the discussion was we should actually think about extending it for another 3 years. Now I mean, the detail of that extension for -- will be communicated as part of the EGM, but what does the Zakhele Futhi Board will have is the right to unwind any time in that period. They will have that election ability to unwind in that time. So having taken cognizance of the fact that Zakhele Futhi has been a very strong underpin to our empowerment credentials, a very sharp devaluation of the naira. You've seen what's happened there and much to guarantee a positive return, but it is a very sharp and sudden and applying our minds of both boards was the 2- to 3-year extension should be reasonable. It doesn't cost the shareholders too much. There is an [ NVF ] backlog that needs clearing there. Does that give it the ability to clear in the next 2 to 3 years. Those are some of the discussions that we've had between the 2 boards, and that will be put forward to the EGM in October.

Thanks, Ralph. Maybe just check if there's another question in the house before I go to the online platform.

Just a quick question for Charles, please. I just wanted to know that the resilience spending in your CapEx line has passed. What does CapEx spend in South Africa looks like for the rest of 2024?

Yes. We remain on the current CapEx profile. I think we are just around let's say about ZAR 9.7 billion in terms of CapEx. The envelope doesn't change. So I think the biggest thing will be how do you navigate the CapEx profile going to 2025. But for 2024, we remain on the current envelope.

Thank you. Let me just take a couple of questions from the online platform. We'll start with Nigeria. Will Nigeria be subject to a minimum applicable tax -- to the minimum applicable tax laws while it is loss-making. What is -- what's the impact to the tower contract renegotiations have on MTN's negative equity position, i.e. could you provide a time line for resolving the negative equity? And what do you perceive as sustainable margins in Nigeria?

Yes. On the first one, there is a minimum tax, even when you make losses, I think it's about 0.5% of total turnover.

Yes. Look, in terms of the negative equity, I think to communicate that this is what we think. I think it will be irresponsible. There are many factors that move that number. As I said, a NGN 100 movement is quite significant all the way to PAT. And that's just the naira. Then you've got to look at CPI. So they have a variety of forces, and we hope that even at the margin level, we've given you the guidance that says 10 percentage movement, either were at the margin level is 0.5% to 1%. The items below EBITDA, finance cost line that will move with the tenure of the lease liabilities having been increased to 2032 and so forth. And so those play a role. The big, big thing that needs to come in is a decent tariff increase. And it's no silver bullet. You need a combination of all those factors. So we'll have to progressively work through all these 5 actions to ultimately get there. We don't see any single silver bullet in the near term. But if you think inflation will come down, if you think that the rates will stabilize, because a lot of that FX is the IAS 21 application on FX movements. It's the movement between the FX. If it's stable, that FX delta is obviously small, and it doesn't have such a profound impact on your unrealized losses. So there are just too many factors there to be able to say to you, there's this very simple answer. I mean in terms of margins, the other issue is we've taken an approach which we look to in terms of applying IFRS 16 to try and mimic economic reality. There's an expedient approach of everything going below EBITDA. So your EBITDA margins look high because you're actually taking FX above EBITDA and all your movements are in below EBITDA. So again, when you're comparing the businesses, don't just look at the EBITDA, everything is quoted at the PAT level. And I think more increasingly, you'll need to look at what are the PAT margins of the company rather than just the EBITDA margins, because there's a lot of movement between EBITDA and at the PAT level.

So maybe just the last couple of questions. I'm just trying to navigate those that have been answered. A combination, yes, so first one on SA. Please quantify the ICT once-off in South Africa, what kind of EBITDA contribution this had? And then on Nigeria, how much headroom do you have left in Nigeria to optimize pricing in terms of the lack of price hike so far?

Yes, the SA, ICT, I think we have a project with GBM. There's probably around total revenue that we took, I think, around [ ZAR 80 million ] or so, I won't talk like more into margin. But margin was slightly tight. These are normal ICT business, very difficult in terms of margin profile. So you can think top line ZAR 80 million and a very muted margin completely.

Yes. On the Nigeria side, I mean, the growth that you're seeing, 50-plus, obviously, there's usage, but we did have a bundle optimization, which effected in October last year. And that gave us a blended level of increase, which we're still benefiting from in the current reported period. I mean, I guess, if we don't get the tariff increase progressed, I mean we'll have to talk to the authorities and regulators really around kind of bundle optimization, which we effected in October. I mean, these discussions are ongoing.

And then just a question on Nigeria. Could you provide some color on where lenders and the NGX and other stakeholders sit with respect to upstreaming of cash from Nigeria, when you still face a negative equity position. So I think it's asking can you upstream and how much cash, I think that is answered already.

So I think we've answered the question. I mean, the Nigeria can't declare dividend while the negative equity and all the dividends have been upstreamed down.

Yes. And then maybe just a final question, perhaps a follow-up on the earlier question. Just on CapEx, having spent about ZAR 4.6 billion on network resilience. Is there a possibility that this investment would be subject to write-offs or amortization, given obviously ongoing reduced load shedding? Or is it too early to proclaim the end of load shedding?

It's too early to proclaim [indiscernible]. We have answered that.

Cool. I mean I think we can wrap it up on that point, and we will interact with you, as I said, in the coming days and months. Just a reminder that we did [indiscernible] 12 innovation lab. Those you have interested if you could congregate towards the bottom right in the room. But otherwise, we are available to answer any further questions. Ralph, I think you've done your wrap up. Thank you very much to everyone and everyone who's logged in online. Thank you.

Thanks. Much appreciate it.