Categories: Business

Airtel Africa grows revenue by 20.6% to $4.7bn

AIRTEL Africa has recorded strong double-digit growth in the year ending March 2022 in revenues across all their regions, posting 20.6 per cent for the year, to $4,714 million.

Specifically, the constant currency underlying revenue of Nigeria went up by 27.7 per cent; East Africa went up 22.7 per cent, while Francophone Africa rose by 17.2 per cent.

Across all key services, revenue in Voice increased by 15.4 per cent; Data appreciated by 34.6 per cent, and Mobile Money went up 34.9 per cent.

According to the result sent to the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX), Airtel Africa said that the operating profit grew by 37.2 per cent to $1,535 million in reported currency, just as its Profit After Tax grew by 82.0 per cent to $755 million.

During the period under review, Airtel Africa boasted of a customer base of 128.4 million, up 8.7 per cent, with increased penetration across mobile data with a customer base increase of 15.2 per cent; and mobile money services with a customer base increase of 20.7 per cent.

Speaking on the performance, Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Africa, Segun Ogunsanya, said this is another strong set of results for Airtel Africa, demonstrating solid execution as the company continued to enrich the lives of a growing number of people through leveraging the sizeable opportunity to promote digital and financial inclusion across the markets.

“We have delivered strong double-digit growth in revenues across all our regions and all our key services, with improving margins driven by strong cost control, and expanding cash generation which is enabling us to continue to invest in our network and services and expand our distribution, as well as strengthening our balance sheet and increasing our returns to shareholders.

“We are connecting more customers in new and existing coverage areas and driving usage levels and ARPUs to new highs.

“We have successfully executed a number of strategic initiatives in the year, with tower sales completed in four countries, $550 million of minority investments secured for our mobile money business and a successful buyout of minorities in our Nigerian operation. Our receipt last month of a full PSB licence in Nigeria will help us to accelerate financial inclusion in the territory and drive our mobile money business even faster.

While the fundamentals of our six-pillar growth strategy remain unchanged, we are looking to accelerate our performance through a greater focus on digitalisation and we have underpinned our strategic pillars with our sustainability ambition.

“Turning to the outlook, long-term opportunities for us remain attractive. While mindful of currency devaluation and repatriation risks, we continue to work actively to mitigate all our material risks and deliver value for all our stakeholders. There are increasing challenges from global inflationary pressures, but we continue to target revenue growth ahead of the market and moderate margin expansion,” Ogunsanya said.

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