2022: Airtel outperforms MTN Nigeria in battle for investors

As the curtain is drawn down on 2022, analysis of Airtel Africa and MTN Nigeria’s outing in the stock market showed investors patronising the telco stocks were more interested in the former in the last 12 months.

While the telcos stock was one of the best performing in the stock market within the period in review, however, Airtel took the larger share of the pie, with MTN making do with a smaller piece.

To better buttress the point, an investor who bought Airtel shares on January 4 at the cost of N955 per share, gained 87.05 per cent return on investment, compared to the person who acquired MTN stock, as 18.13 per cent return was made.

This means Airtel handed investors more value for their investment within the calendar year, compared to what was gained by persons who invested in MTN – even though both firms recorded a combined gain of N5.53 trillion.

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It was learnt that shareholders of Airtel generated a whopping N4.86 trillion on return on investment thanks to high demand from stock investors, which saw the share price of Airtel rise from N955 on January 4 to N1488 as of December 29, 2022.

Due to the rise in share value, Airtel stocks became more valuable than MTN in the stock market, despite starting the year behind the y’ello network.

Airtel’s market valuation rose to N5.59 trillion from N724.03 billion within 12 months, as against that of MTN, which closed Thursday with N4.37 billion, up from N3.70 billion.

During the period in review, Ripples Nigeria gathered from the analysis that shareholders at MTN made N671.69 billion from their investment in the telco this year.

This publication learnt during the year, both companies announced revenue growth opportunities that could increase their shareholders’ investment value.

Airtel and MTN received approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to operate their Payment Service Bank. Airtel received license for SMARTCASH Payment Service Bank Limited and MTN got approval for MoMo PSB.