Tenants increased by 868 year-on-year, including 916 from Colocation and 98 from New Sites, partially offset by 146 from Churn, while Lease Amendments increased by 1,688.
Segment Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter grew 2.9% year-on-year to $71.7 million, resulting in an Adjusted EBITDA Margin of 59.4%. The year-on-year increase in segment Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter primarily reflected an $11.3 million decrease in costs included within Adjusted EBITDA, which more than offset the reduction in revenue. The reduction in costs was driven by reduced power generation costs ($6.5 million), security services costs ($2.7 million) and tower repairs and maintenance costs ($2.2 million), largely as a result of the changes in our agreements with MTN South Africa described above.
Latam
First quarter revenue decreased 0.5% year-on-year to $47.5 million and was primarily driven by the non-core impact of adverse movements in foreign exchange rates of $8.6 million, or 18.1%. Organic revenue increased 18.1% in the quarter, or $8.7 million, driven by a one-off increase in revenues from our customer Oi S.A. (“Oi Brazil”) of $3.6 million after their judicial recovery proceedings, and continued growth in Tenants, Lease Amendments and New Sites.
Tenants increased by 855 year-on-year, including 610 from New Sites and 350 from Colocation, partially offset by 39 Churned and net divestiture of 66 due to the disposal of Peru, while Lease Amendments increased by 414.
First quarter segment Adjusted EBITDA increased 5.3% to $35.6 million for a segment Adjusted EBITDA Margin of 75.0%, and primarily reflected a $2.0 million reduction in costs, which more than offset the decrease in revenue described above. The reduction in costs was driven by a decrease in staff costs ($2.7 million) and site rental costs ($0.5 million), more than offsetting an increase in tower repairs and maintenance costs ($0.5 million) and security services costs ($0.4 million).
MENA
On December 19, 2024, the Company completed the disposal of its 70% interest in IHS Kuwait Limited, resulting in a year-on-year reduction to revenue and segment Adjusted EBITDA of $10.9 million and $6.1 million, respectively, in the first quarter of 2025 when compared to the first quarter of 2024. The revenue from the first quarter of 2024 is captured within inorganic revenue.
As of the end of the first quarter of 2024, the MENA segment had 1,672 Towers and 1,694 Tenants. Following completion of the Kuwait Disposal in December 2024, these Towers and Tenants were deconsolidated in December 2024.
Refer to note 31.2 in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 for further information on the disposal of the Kuwait business.
CAPITAL EXPENDITURE
Set out below is the capital expenditure for the three month periods ended March 31, 2025 and 2024 for each of our reporting segments:
| | | | | | |
| | Three months ended March 31, | | |
| | 2025 | | 2024 | | Growth |
| | $’million | | $’million | | % |
| | | | | | |
Nigeria | | 11.2 | | 11.9 | | (5.5) |
SSA | | 8.2 | | 6.4 | | 28.0 |
Latam | | 23.8 | | 34.5 | | (30.9) |
MENA | | — | | 0.1 | | (100.0) |
Other | | 0.4 | | 0.2 | | 81.6 |
Total Capex | | 43.6 | | 53.1 | | (17.8) |
During the first quarter of 2025, Total Capex was $43.6 million, compared to $53.1 million for the first quarter of 2024. The decrease is primarily driven by lower capital expenditure in our Latam segment reflecting the actions we are taking to improve cash generation and to narrow our focus on capital allocation.