After two loss-making years, MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest telecom operator, has returned to profitability and with it, dividend payments.
For 2025, the telecoms giant will pay a total of ₦419.91 billion ($304.72 million) to shareholders.
The company paid an interim dividend of ₦5 per share in October 2025, its first since August 2023, after restoring positive retained earnings and shareholders’ equity. It has now proposed a final dividend of ₦15 per share. That brings the total dividend for the year to ₦20 per share, according to its 2025 financial statements.
The payout follows a financial turnaround. Revenue rose by 54.93% in 2025, while profit after tax surged to ₦1.11 trillion ($805.50 million), reversing the loss recorded a year earlier.
Here’s how the dividend payout breaks down, and who benefits the most.
MTN’s interim dividend of ₦5 amounts to ₦104.98 billion ($76.18 million), and its proposed final dividend of ₦15 amounts to ₦314.93 billion ($228.54 million).
When approved, the total dividend for 2025 would amount to ₦20, totalling ₦419.91 billion ($304.72 million).
MTN Nigeria has 203,749 shareholders, but one shareholder dominates. MTN Group, through MTN International (Mauritius) Limited, owns 73.39% of the company.
Out of 20.99 billion shares, the Group holds 15.41 billion shares, and at ₦20 per share, that translates to ₦308.19 billion ($226.05 million).
As of the end of the third quarter of 2025, MTN Group said it would receive a gross dividend of about 975 million rand ($59.19 million) from its Nigerian subsidiary. The rest is spread across a long tail of shareholders.
A granular look at how MTN Nigeria’s 2025 dividend is distributed. Toggle the view to see the stark difference between the total group payout and the average individual payout within each tier.
The TechCabal Insight: The data reveals a steep corporate pyramid. Over 96% of all shareholders (195,719 people) fall into the bottom tier of 1-10,000 shares, collectively holding just 97.23 million shares. Meanwhile, a single entity controls over 15.4 billion shares, pulling in over ₦308 billion in dividends alone.
