Tag: Awards
MTN Group has received recognition on the 2021 Fortune Change the World list. The Change the World List is a global ranking of the top 53 companies that make a measurable progress addressing pressing social problems as part of their business strategy.
“MTN is humbled to be recognised on the Fortune Change the World list. We are committed to changing the world through meaningful contributions to the societies across the markets in which we operate,” says MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita. “Our networks, products, and services are supplied with the intention of closing the digital divide by facilitating digital communications and financial inclusion.”
The publishers of the Change the World list have noted that many of this year’s honourees are battling to reverse the neglect of some societal needs, as magnified by the pandemic. These companies are investing in the long-term health of their businesses by supporting those on the lower stages of the global economic ladder, including distributing COVID-19 vaccines in low- and middle-income nations.
Since the start of the spread of COVID-19, MTN has remained committed to playing a part in the ongoing fight against the pandemic through our global mask wearing awareness campaign #wearitforme and #onemorepushafrica. Heeding the call for vaccinations across the African continent, MTN donated US$25 million to support the African Union’s COVID-19 vaccination programme. The donation to Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) will help secure up to seven million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for health workers on the continent.
Also noted during the pandemic, the urgent need to stay connected, saw data traffic soaring by 110% in 2020. MTN was able to address gaps in connectivity by improving the affordability of its services, whilst providing digital and financial solutions to consumers and businesses, and helping to drive digital inclusion to the most vulnerable and marginalised communities on the African continent.
For MTN, better connectivity doesn’t mean less eco-responsibility. MTN works with its partners to make sure we limit our environmental impact and safeguards biodiversity around every cell tower we build. MTN has also set science-based targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 47% by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2040.
For us, this is about being part of the long-term solution, harnessing the power of partnerships to act swiftly to address the challenges brought on by the pandemic, whilst prioritising our people, customers, and communities, as well as looking after our businesses and the environment. It is for this reason, we continue to believe in the power of collective action to make a meaningful difference, focusing our efforts where needs are greatest.
Read more:
These companies are changing the world
How a pan-African company is connecting the world—responsibly
For the second year in a row, MTN Group has been named the most valuable African brand in the Brand Finance Africa 150 rankings, which assigned the group a brand value of US$2.7 billion – US$1.0 billion above the next most valuable brand.
A report on the 2021 survey’s findings states that “the telecoms giant dominates on home soil too, this year holding onto its decade-long reign as South Africa’s most valuable brand”.
Brand value is defined as the “net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market”.
Brand Finance Africa said the value of the continent’s top 150 brands fell by a combined US$5.5 billion in 2021, largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic creating uncertainty and impacting brands’ ability to do business as usual. In 2020, it had assigned MTN a brand value of US$3.3 billion.
MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita said the latest accolades were achieved thanks to the hard work of MTNers across the continent and their commitment to bringing to everyone in 17 African markets the benefits of a modern connected life.
“We are both humbled and inspired by the confidence our customers and broader stakeholders continue to place in the MTN brand. At the core, a brand is about exceeding promises, expectations and delivering true value,” Mupita said.
“MTNers know this is the work that needs to be done every day, everywhere, as we remain focused on our core belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.”
MTN Group’s brand is growing from strength to strength, evidenced by its top rankings in two separate independent brand surveys released this week.
MTN remains the ‘Most Admired African Brand’ in the Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands 2021 survey published on Tuesday. The survey covers 28 countries representing 80% of the continent’s population as well as 80% of its GDP.
For the 10th year running, MTN was also named as the most valuable and strongest South African brand by Brand Finance, which gave the Group a brand value of R44.8 billion in its South Africa 50 2021 survey released on Monday.
“MTN’s work to achieve the best brand in our markets is part of ensuring that we offer the leading customer experience. This is a vital enabler of our Ambition 2025 strategy,” said MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita, adding that 15 of the Group’s 21 operations boasted their market’s highest net promoter scores.
This year, Brand Africa’s survey included a new category – brands which were perceived to have been helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic. MTN was named the number one private sector brand in this category and followed the World Health Organization in the overall rankings.
During COVID-19, the Group worked to keep people connected and informed. In a unique public/private partnership in early 2021, MTN donated US$25 million to the African Union’s vaccination programme to secure COVID-19 vaccines for the continent’s health workers.
The Group also worked with host nations to support the Africa COVID Communications and Information Platform and launched the #WearItForMe mask campaign to encourage people everywhere to protect each other.
MTN Group is pleased to announce that it has been named the most valuable African brand in the Brand Finance Africa 150 2020 ranking, which ascribes a brand value of US$3,3 billion to MTN.
Brand value is the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market.
In its survey, Brand Finance said: “Over the last year, Africa’s largest mobile operator has celebrated solid profits and impressive subscriber growth.”
The survey assessed the impact of COVID-19 on the enterprise value of all brands in its survey, compared to their values on 1 January 2020. It categorised the telecoms sector as ‘limited impact’, which it said meant “minimal brand value loss or potential brand value growth”. This was due to the increasingly important role that mobile operators have played in keeping people connected in the time of the pandemic.
In July, Brand Finance named MTN Group the most valuable South African brand, a result of the group’s focus on improving the customer experience for subscribers, as well as uniting 19 000 employees around a shared belief, which is that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.
MTN is encouraged to have maintained its position as South Africa’s most valuable brand in Brand Finance’s 2020 Top 50 South African Brands survey released on Wednesday, with a brand value of R49,4 billion.
“We are pleased to be appearing at the top of the list again,” said MTN Group President and CEO Rob Shuter. “But what is more important is that we’ve made progress year-on-year, in particular in the brand strength index scores.”
According to Brand Finance, MTN’s brand strength improved to AAA in 2020 from AAA- in 2019. This was a result of the group’s focus on improving the customer experience for its almost 260 million subscribers, as well as uniting its 19 000 employees around a shared belief, which is that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.
“We have worked hard to make sure that our customers find that we are easy to do business with, that our propositions are tailormade, and that our network quality is really good,” said Shuter. “Inside MTN, we have focussed on connecting our people to the fact that what we do is worthwhile, and that we make a meaningful contribution to society. This is so important because our people are our brand ambassadors.”
He said the brand helped glue MTN employees together across 21 countries on two continents: “If we deliver a sense of personal ownership in the brand, then we start to have some of the improvements we’ve seen in the last few years, despite some difficult markets and some difficult events.”
In an increasingly competitive and dynamic market, MTN would not rest on its laurels and still had much work to do. “We really are just at the start of this. We are encouraged with the progress, but we are going to keep building the faith, and improving the experience,” Shuter said.
MTN is delighted to announce that it remains the ‘Most Admired African Brand’ based on spontaneous consumer responses in Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands 2020 survey released on Monday. MTN is also the only African brand in the rankings of the ‘Most Admired Brands in Africa’.
In a survey carried out in 27 countries, representing around 80% of the population and the GDP of Africa, the group is now also considered one of the continent’s most admired media brands. MTN Mobile Money – through which MTN provides more than 35 million Africans access to financial services – remains one of Africa’s most admired finance brands. The Group also maintained its top position in the telecoms provider category.
“We are thrilled to receive these accolades as the continent celebrates Africa Day,” said Group President and CEO Rob Shuter. “They endorse the work that we are doing to build a digital operator, moving our customers from a voice-centric world into the world of mobile data, digital services and financial services by using the power of the internet.”
“Achieving the best brand in our markets is a critical part of our BRIGHT strategy. I would like to thank all our customers and communities for the trust that they have shown in us. It encourages us to work harder every day to deliver on our belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.”
MTN has been awarded the most valuable telecom brand in Africa in a recent annual report by Brand Finance, a leading independent brand valuation consultancy. The report stated that MTN’s brand value was boosted by a solid overall performance for the year, despite challenging economic conditions and regulatory challenges in some markets.
Brand finance also recognised MTN for its focus on customers and providing a high-quality service across all its markets. “Amid these unprecedented times in fighting a global pandemic, MTN Group is humbled by the Brand Finance recognition and our progress in rising up through the ranks of this year’s Telecoms 150 report” said MTN President and Group CEO, Rob Shuter.
Brand Finance CEO, David Haigh commented: “MTN is to be commended for its performance in its home market as well as further afield. They are increasingly recognised throughout Africa by their customers as providing high quality service, because their brand image is deeply rooted on more than just marketing campaigns”
Brand Finance acknowledged MTN’s BRIGHT strategy to grow revenues through data and digital, while also focusing on growing its subscriber base. It upgraded MTN’s brand strength rating from AAA- to AAA, in recognition of an increasingly strong leadership position in telecommunication services throughout Africa and the other markets within which it operates, as well as increasingly resilient network investments.
The report noted a negative global impact on the brand value of the world’s biggest telecom companies which are set to be impacted by the Coronavirus outbreak. “We have built a sound, robust and resilient organisation that can and will weather the storm before us. As a Group, we are taking the decisive steps required to persevere in our MTN spirit of togetherness and a positive, can-do attitude,” concluded Shuter.
MTN is thrilled to announce that it has been named the most admired brand by Brand Africa 100, based on spontaneous consumer responses.
The seventh annual Brand Africa 100 report was released on 24 May 2019, featuring the top 100 most admired brands in Africa.
Ranked number eight in the top 100 most admired brands in Africa, MTN is the only African brand in the top 10, as well as the most admired telecommunications brand on the continent. Furthermore, within the financial services category, MTN Mobile Money is in the Top 20 at number 19, up one position from 2018. MTN is also the overall number one brand in Rwanda and Liberia, and the number one Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed brand in the Brand Africa 100 rankings.
Brand Africa 100 is a pan-African survey and ranking of Africa’s Best Brands developed by Brand Leadership. The rankings are based on a comprehensive survey by Geopoll, a global leader in providing high quality market research in emerging markets, and strategic analysis and weighted consumer admiration ranking by Kantar, the world’s leading data, insights and consulting company and Brand Leadership, Africa’s leading branding and integrated marketing communications advisory.
The 2018/19 study surveyed consumers from 25 countries in Africa (12 of which are MTN markets). Together these countries represent 85% of Africa’s population and 85% of GDP.
Commenting on the accolade, Bernice Samuels, MTN Group Executive for Marketing said, “This is such an honour for MTN and I wish to thank our customers on the continent for their support over the years, which has seen us being ranked as the most admired African Brand yet again.”
Samuels adds, “With Africa being a young continent, young Africans want to experience a modern, digital, connected life. We are doing everything we can to make this a reality by leading the delivery of a bold new digital world in ways that are relevant to our customers.”
“MTN is committed to brightening lives every day by being a responsive, customer and community focused company. Through the MTN Foundations we work together with communities to create opportunities to advance growth and development by supporting health and education initiatives and national development priorities. We are also working hard to deliver the best customer experience in voice, data, digital and financial services so that consumers across our footprint continue to choose us as their most admired and preferred brand.”