Telecoms giants, MTN Group on Friday in Johannesburg said its shares have slumped more than 13 per cent with the expected fall in profit blamed on the under- performance in Nigeria.
It said that the underperformance was because it faced a 3.9 billion dollars fine for failing to cut off more than five million SIM card users by the set date.
Africa’s biggest mobile phone company said it was still in talks with regulators about the final size of the penalty.
“There remains some uncertainty as to the final quantum (amount) of the Nigerian fine, should an out of court settlement be reached,” the company said.
MTN was handed a 5.2 billion dollars penalty in October, prompting weeks of lobbying that led to a 25 per cent reduction to 3.9 billion dollars.
But the company was still not prepared to pay the lower fine which equates to more than twice MTN’s annual average capital spending over the past five years.