Stakeholders are central to MTN's value-creation model. As key enablers of our efforts to ensure that everyone benefits from a modern connected life, our engagements with governments, regulators, communities, customers and multilateral institutions directly influences our strategic progress. Through structured, transparent and insight-driven engagement, we work to align MTN's performance with stakeholder expectations; strengthen our licence to operate; and advance national, regional and continental development goals.
As part of our nation states programme, through our stakeholder and reputation management framework, we proactively build and sustain the reputation of MTN and its three platforms. In this regard, MTN is committed to being a partner of choice to host governments and an active corporate citizen in the societies where we are present. This commitment, together with our purpose of leading digital solutions for Africa's progress, means MTN is often called upon to play a developmental, leading and advisory role.
In playing out those commitments, we drive MTN's reputation by managing the gap between stakeholder expectations and company performance.
In this regard, 2025 marked a milestone in reputation management achievements wherein all Opcos surpassed overall reputation management targets, resulting in the Group reaching its highest watermark since we started measuring stakeholder perceptions in 2019. This translated into a reputation score of 80 points compared with our target of 75.
Aligning MTN’s performance with stakeholder expectations
In seeking to drive transparency and consistency in reputation, stakeholder engagements and perceptions, we paid particular attention to the following categories of stakeholders, in no particular order:
Subscribers/ customers
Investor community
Suppliers and vendors
Trade partners
Government
Regulators and policymakers
Media
Civil society
Mobile industry
Organised business
MTNers
In driving reputation, principally through our nation states programme, we proactively engage to improve responsiveness and trust in relationships with all our stakeholders to advance our Pan-African agenda. This requires consistent engagement and objective measurements on the effectiveness and quality of that engagement. Consequently, MTN engages in a Group-wide annual and scientific RIS.
Sustained quality of engagements and impactful outcomes require a forging of effective alliances, so as to enhance accountability and transparency in stakeholder interactions. This requires timeous and appropriate communication of decisions. This is achieved principally to foster trust, healthy relations, and cooperation among stakeholders.
Because MTN operates in unpredictable markets, we work proactively to shape the evolving policy and regulatory landscape by leveraging our partnerships with:
All these provide proactive risk mitigation, optimised resource allocation and a structured guidance mechanism, so as to create shared value through the connecting of friends, families, businesses, communities and nations.
Meeting the objectives of the stakeholder strategy
At the core of the revitalised 2025 stakeholder strategy are investments in healthy, quality and long-term relationships with priority stakeholders to build stakeholder trust.
Our reputation in 2025
To measure our reputation and stakeholder perception performance, we rely on stakeholder feedback in our everyday engagements, as well as on our RIS. The RIS directly surveys stakeholders and incorporates this information with data collected through ongoing NPS tracking for subscribers and customers and the Sentimeter Survey for MTNers.
We use the services of a reputable independent survey provider to carry out the RIS. The survey interrogates all ten identified stakeholder groups, except for MTNers, whose responses are captured by the Sentimeter.
A key determinant of the outcomes and the quality of response is the participation rate in the survey. Overall, we considered the final realised sample size in 2025 to be a sufficient representation for reporting across all stakeholder categories in all markets, except for customers in Uganda – a result of the survey being carried out during a busy time for stakeholders there: elections.
Of the 5 776 questionnaires sent out across markets, we recorded an overall 48% response rate, considered near to exceptional.
How we fared against key stakeholder management objectives in 2025:
Reputation
80.1
(2024: 78.5)
Relationship health
78.8
(2024: 78.1)
Trust
80.1
(2024: 77.6)
Quality of engagement
73.6
(2024: 73.5)
Overall reputation
According to the RIS, the Group’s overall reputation improved to 80.1 from 2024’s 78.5 and a target of 75. This is the highest score achieved since the survey’s inception in 2019.
It was also the first time that all Opcos surpassed the 75 point target. Some markets like MTN Cameroon have remained consistently above 80 since 2020. MTN Uganda has also consistently exceeded the 80-point mark, except for 2020. In 2025, MTN Ghana achieved the highest score in the Group of 85.
Since 2020, MTN Côte d’Ivoire, MTN Eswatini and MTN Liberia have also had above-target reputation. After a setback in 2024, MTN Congo-Brazzaville demonstrated a significant turnaround, increasing its reputation index score by 11 points to 80 in 2025. In Nigeria, MTN’s reputation also recovered from a 2024 dip to reach 80. Following a similar trend was MTN South Sudan, improving to 83.
In Zambia, South Africa and Benin, MTN’s reputation has ebbed, underscoring the need for focused attention from a stakeholder and reputation management perspective.
Particular issues or actions shape MTN’s reputation: when MTN excels in these aspects, our reputation grows stronger; when performance falls short, our reputation suffers. Of the ten material issues recorded since 2019, five have proven especially significant across stakeholder groups. We list them here and note how we performed in 2025 in meeting stakeholder expectations:
Business performance
84
(78)
Impact on socioeconomic development
83
(78)
Product and customer experience
73
(70)
Contribution to the industry
86
(81)
Compliance with legislation and regulations
81
(75)
Note: Numbers in brackets refer to prior-year performance.
Of these five issues:
In all areas and stakeholder categories MTN continued to perform from moderate to excellent, with the contributions to industry showing excellent performance, as well as business performance, contributions to socio economic development, compliance, governance, innovation, and leadership deemed from good to excellent by all stakeholders.
Regulators’ concerns regarding product and customer experience, as well as customer protection, continue to present reputational risks for MTN. Customer protection generally received ratings below target, with only the mobile industry assigning scores above 75.
A snapshot of our stakeholders
While all stakeholders mentioned on above are important to our operations, at Group level, we identify six stakeholder groups with the highest potential to impact our ability to create, preserve and protect value at a multinational level.
Government
Regulators and policymakers
Civil society
Investment community
Subscribers/ customers
MTNers
In the below that follow, we provide details of the key metrics we track for each stakeholder group, including the material issues they identified as mattering most to them.
Expand sections below for more information
Government
Why we engage
Provides an enabling environment for value creation.
Reputation
79.7(78.9)
Relationship health
79.8(78.4)
Trust
81.1(76.4)
What matters most to them
Demonstrate a deeper national commitment beyond profitability.
Improve service reliability and ensure operations actively support nation states’ digital and development priorities.
Pursuing improved network coverage and reliability; minimising network downtime.
Mobilising partnerships to maximise socioeconomic impact.
Engaging governments directly.
Industry advocacy through GSMA, African initiatives and third parties.
Undertake at least one leadership visit to priority markets a year and hold periodic consultations in other markets.
Host annual African ambassadors’ dinner.
Participate in advocacy efforts of the GSMA, multilateral and third parties on key policy issues.
Note: Numbers in brackets refer to prior-year performance.
Regulators and policymakers
Why we engage
Provide an enabling environment for value creation by regulating our industries and awarding licences. These stakeholders include ministries and public-sector departments with direct oversight of the information and communication technologies (ICT), investment and finance sectors as well as lawmakers who directly affect the operating environment.
Reputation
78.5(78.8)
Relationship health
79.8(80.3)
Trust
78.9(76.9)
What matters most to them
Service reliability and customer protection.
Greater proof of ethical conduct, compliance discipline and transparent engagement.
Refined our plans to align better and collaborate, with a view to partnering on priority items.
Launching the MTN Group Foundation to complement the work of the Opco foundations.
Leveraging global and in-country industry and business associations.
Conduct consultations and courtesy calls across markets, with multilateral agencies and industry platforms.
Participate in policy forums and industry associations to enhance the quality of engagement and advocate for a transformed sector.
Invest in initiatives such as the GSMA white papers on key issues.
Note: Numbers in brackets refer to prior-year performance.
Civil Society
Why we engage
Provides the basis from which MTN’s services are generated, workforce skills are acquired and where our business derives its legitimacy.
Reputation
80.2(79.7)
Relationship health
78.1(80.2)
Trust
79.2(77.7)
What matters most to them
Better reach and impact, especially in rural areas.
Expectations that MTN invests more.
Product experience quality and upholding human rights.
Addressing network coverage and reliability.
Consulting to better align with expectations.
Respecting and promoting human rights at MTN and in the value chain.
Undertake periodic consultations, roundtables and roadshows.
Participate in forums and programmes through foundations.
Note: Numbers in brackets refer to prior-year performance.
Investment community
Why we engage
Provides debt and equity funding to deliver sustainable and attractive total shareholder returns.
Reputation
74.4(82.3)
Relationship health
63.8(86.2)
Trust
75.8(78.8)
What matters most to them
Clearer insight into long-term strategy, capital deployment and governance discipline.
Better risk management, transparency and sustainable value creation.
Communicating consistently and transparently on performance and initiatives to mitigate against uncertainty.
Providing timeous updates on any corporate action.
Executing on Ambition 2030 rollout.
Meetings, webcasts, roadshows, conferences.
Results presentations, trading updates, capital market days, governance roadshow.
SENS announcements, mailbox, website. RIS, Integrated Report.
Note: Numbers in brackets refer to prior-year performance.
Subscribers/customers
Why we engage
Purchase competitive and reliable products and services.
Reputation
80.7(72.4)
Relationship health
79.1(70.9)
Trust
80.5(75.5)
What matters most to them
More consistent and reliable user experience.
Continued improvement on service quality, transparency and customer support.
Addressing network coverage and reliability.
Accelerating direct engagements, updating systems and applications for greater billing transparency.
On-the-ground engagement by Y’ello experience agents.
Interaction via digital channels and social media.
Campaigns and trade activities.
NPS survey.
Note: Numbers in brackets refer to prior-year performance.
MTNers
Why we engage
To unlock potential, shape a purpose-led culture and enable delivery on our strategy. In an AI-enabled world, we are building a human‑centred workplace where technology enhances how people work and thrive, supported by our shift to a ‘hospitality-for-people’ approach.
Leadership
80(78)
Employee NPS
+65(+59)
Inclusion
88(88)
What matters most to them
Note: Numbers in brackets refer to prior-year performance.
Investing in our people, building future-fit skills and empowering our workforce for AI and a technology‑enabled world.
Fostering an authentic culture and staying firm to our commitment to build a diverse talent and leadership pipeline.
Building technologies that embolden and support our people both at work and in life.
Advancing gender equality and pay parity, with targeted representation of women across leadership, transformation and skills initiatives.
Building a ‘Human-AI’ organisation, equipping employees with future-ready skills while leveraging technology to remove manual work and unlock meaningful, creative contributions.
Reimagining and transforming HR to a hospitality-grade people model, focused on personalised, proactive and insight-led employee experiences.
We listen through our biannual Group Culture Audit (GCA); regular Sentimeter surveys; leadership platforms (Global Leadership Gathering and 'Open sessions'); and always-on campaigns, podcasts and communications.
We enable engagement through digital recognition and multi-channel learning platforms, supporting continuous feedback, development and employee experience.
GCA and Sentimeter
