MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita has landed a record R99.3-million payday for the 2025 financial year, a jump that places him at the top of the telecoms giant’s earnings ladder and marks his biggest single-year remuneration package since taking charge in September 2020. For South African investors and ordinary shareholders alike, the numbers will turn heads: this is not just a fat cheque, but a sharp reminder of how tightly executive pay is tied to performance, share price movements and boardroom policy at one of the continent’s most important listed companies.
Mupita’s total remuneration climbed 53% from the R64.8-million he received in the prior year, comfortably beating his previous personal high of a little over R92-million in 2023. The increase comes after a strong year for MTN, but also at a sensitive moment for the company’s pay governance. Just months ago, shareholders delivered a warning shot by rejecting MTN’s non-binding remuneration implementation report at the group’s 30th annual general meeting in May 2025.
That vote did not pass quietly. The resolution failed to get the required 75% support, with 40.82% of votes cast against it. The report will return to investors at the next AGM, due on 29 May 2026, meaning the debate over executive compensation is far from over. For a company with millions of customers across Africa, the optics of rising pay will remain under scrutiny, especially in a market where consumers are under pressure from inflation and rising living costs.
Still, MTN is defending the package on performance grounds. In its remuneration report, Khotso Mokhele, chair of the remuneration committee, said the group’s pay philosophy is designed to support strategy, growth and talent retention. He argued that remuneration must help MTN attract and keep “exceptional talent” while recognising the people driving innovation, transformation and progress across its markets.
According to MTN, the biggest contributor to Mupita’s windfall was the vesting of long-term incentives at a much higher share price. The valuation used for vested shares rose from R124.60 in the 2024 vesting cycle to R202.20 in 2025, lifting the value of those awards substantially. The company also said it increased the weighting of company performance in executive short-term incentives to 70% during the year, which, combined with stronger trading results, boosted bonus outcomes across the top team.
MTN CEO Ralph Mupita pay package surges as results strengthen
Mupita was not the only executive to benefit from MTN’s stronger year. Group CFO Tsholofelo Molefe saw her total remuneration rise 55% to R52-million, while Karl Toriola, who leads MTN Nigeria and also serves as vice-president for francophone Africa, received R57-million, up 61%. Ebenezer Asante, MTN’s senior vice-president for markets, collected almost R52-million, a rise of 38%. New MTN South Africa CEO Ferdi Moolman received R18-million, despite only serving in the role for the final two months of the financial year.
The executive pay figures reflect a group that delivered its strongest financial showing in years. MTN posted service revenue growth of 22.7% in constant currency to R218.5-billion, while Ebitda before once-off items rose 36.8%. Adjusted headline earnings per share jumped 67%, underlining just how much the group’s earnings improved over the period.
That performance allowed the board to reward shareholders too. MTN declared a R5 per share dividend, up from R3.45 previously, and announced a R6-billion opportunistic share buyback programme to be rolled out over three years. In a market that watches dividends closely, that combination of stronger cash returns and higher executive pay is likely to fuel lively discussion when the AGM season comes around again.
The group’s strongest momentum came from MTN Nigeria and MTN Ghana, which posted constant-currency service revenue growth of 54.9% and 35.9% respectively. Those markets carried much of the load for the group, while MTN South Africa delivered a far more muted outcome. Local service revenue rose by only 2%, Ebitda in South Africa fell 10.2%, and the local Ebitda margin slipped by 2.9 percentage points to 34.5%.
For Mupita, the performance scorecard was linked not only to group-wide results, but also to team execution and balance-sheet repair, particularly the reduction of Nigeria’s negative equity position. That issue has long been central to MTN’s financial story, and its improvement helped shape the CEO’s overall rating for the year.
As we reported earlier, MTN has also been reviewing how it compares executive pay with peers. The company benchmarks top management against listed South African groups such as Vodacom, Shoprite, Standard Bank and MultiChoice. Importantly, mining companies were removed from the comparator set for the CEO and CFO in 2025 after shareholders raised concerns about the fairness of including them in the mix.
That change matters because benchmarking can materially influence what executives earn. If the peer group is too broad or not relevant, pay can quickly drift upward. MTN says the revised comparator set better reflects the company’s market reality, and its remuneration committee insists the framework remains “robust, well governed and appropriately aligned” to strategy, performance and values.
There is no question that MTN’s 2025 numbers justify confidence in the business. But the scale of R99.3-million for a single CEO, even in a strong year, is bound to keep the spotlight on executive compensation at one of South Africa’s most influential corporates. With shareholders having already signalled discomfort, the real test will come at the next AGM, where investors will decide whether MTN’s pay story still passes muster.