Airtel Africa PLC said on Friday that profit and revenue have seen substantial growth over the first nine months of its financial year, amid a boost to its customer base.
The London-based company provides telecommunications and mobile money services in Nigeria, East Africa and Francophone Africa.
Pretax profit in the nine months that ended December 31 surged 79% year-on-year to $864 million from $482 million. It grew by 49% in the third quarter alone to $297 million from $200 million.
Revenue rose 22% in the nine-month period to $3.49 billion from $2.87 billion in the same period of financial 2021. On a constant currency basis, underlying revenue grew by 25%, with growth seen in all regions. The Data and Mobile Money divisions saw strong revenue growth with both up 37%, as the customer bases increased by 11% and 20% respectively.
Revenue in the third quarter was up 18% to $1.22 billion from $1.03 billion the prior year.
Airtel said it had 125.8 million customers as of December 31, up 5.8% on a year before. Within that, mobile data customers increased by 11% and mobile money customers by 20%.
During the financial third quarter, Airtel made 3.1 million net additions, including 1.9 million in Nigeria. Prior to the third quarter, customer growth had taken a hit as new identity regulations for SIM cards were introduced in Nigeria, but this region returned to growth in the third quarter. Excluding Nigeria, the customer base was up 12% on a year ago.
Airtel noted the strong revenue growth was partly due to a weakened performance in the first quarter of the comparative period, due to Covid. However, even when this is factored in, growth is still ahead of financial 2021, it said.
Airtel’s share price was down 0.2% to 156.50 pence in London on Friday morning.
Chief Executive Officer Segun Ogunsanya commented: ‘A strong third quarter has contributed to a pleasing nine-month financial performance across all key metrics. Operationally we have continued to execute on our network and distribution expansion plans, driving continued strong growth in ARPUs across voice, data and mobile money.
‘We will continue to invest in expanding and evolving our platform to further deepen both financial and digital inclusion across Africa. I continue to see huge growth potential across voice, data and mobile money and our strategy is delivering against this opportunity.’
Airtel also said that its wholly-owned subsidiary Bharti Airtel International BV will redeem all of its 5.1% guaranteed senior notes in March, one year early. The total amount comes to $504.9 million, which will be paid out of Airtel’s cash reserves.
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