Nigeria’s 32.4% revenue growth improves Airtel Africa’s operations

Airtel’s Nigerian operations added 32.4% revenue increase to the cumulative earnings of the telecommunications firm in the first half of the year ended September 2021.

Going by the financials released yesterday, Airtel Africa revenue grew by 25.2% to $2,272 million with double digit growth across all regions.

The report showed that the revenue in constant currency grew by 27.6%

Specifically, the report showed that there was strong double-digit constant currency revenue growth across all regions: Nigeria up 32.4 per cent, East Africa up 25.8 per cent and Francophone Africa up 22.1 per cent; and across all key services, Voice up 19.7 per cent, Data up 36.9 per cent and Mobile Money up 42.0 per cent.

The firm said its underlying EBITDA grew by 35.2 per cent to $1,098 million in reported currency and underlying EBITDA margin improved to 48.3 per cent, an increase of 360 basis points led by both revenue growth and improved operational efficiencies.

While the report revealed that operating profit was up 55.1 per cent to $732 million in reported currency, Profit After Tax more than doubled to $335 million, largely due to higher profit before tax which more than offset the associated increase in tax charges.

According to the firm, the basic EPS was 7.6 cents, an increase of 155.9 per cent, as a result of higher profit. EPS before exceptional items increased to 7.5 cents from 3.0 cents in previous period.

The firm’s leverage ratio reduced to 1.5x from 2.2x, while customer base grew by 5.4 per cent to 122.7 million, with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 10.9 per cent) and mobile money services (customer base up 19.0 per cent).