Airtel Africa PLC on Wednesday reported a sharp increase in full-year profit and revenue due to healthy customer base growth.

The London-based telecommunications and mobile money services provider generated a pretax profit of $1.22 billion in the year ended March 31, up 75% versus $697 million the year prior.

This was on revenue growth of 21% to $4.71 billion from $3.91 billion.

The FTSE 100-listed firm said it delivered strong double-digit growth across all its key services. It credited this to customer base growth of 8.7% to 128.4 million and growth in average revenue per user of 15%.

Further, it said that revenue growth for the year benefited from a weakened performance in the first quarter of the prior year, due to a peak period of Covid-19 restrictions across the region.

Airtel Africa has a total of 14 operating countries in Africa, primarily in east Africa and central and west Africa.

Airtel Africa recommended a final dividend of 3 US cents per share, unchanged from the year before. This took its total payout for financial 2022 to 5 cents per share, down from 6 cents.

Looking ahead, the company said its long-term opportunities remain attractive. It is targeting revenue growth ahead of the market and moderate margin expansion.

Airtel Africa shares were trading 0.4% higher at 140.69 pence each in London on Wednesday morning.

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