Airtel Africa Declares H1’27 Net Profit of $452m, 3.1 Cents Interim Dividend

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

Airtel Africa Plc improved its profit after tax (PAT) by 20.21 per cent to $452 million in the first half of its financial year ended September 30, 2026, from the $376 million recorded in the same period last year.

This improvement reflects the continued strength of the underlying operating performance, despite higher finance costs and lower foreign exchange and derivative gains during the period.

In the current period, the net profit was impacted by exceptional items of $55 million relating to an in-principle settlement in one of the group’s subsidiaries and Airtel Money IPO expenses.

Details of the results showed that despite increased inflationary pressure from higher fuel costs, underlying EBITDA margins remained resilient at 50.3 per cent, with margins at an all-time high of 50.4 per cent in Q2’27, a 1.44 per cent increase over the previous period.

This strong performance reflects the benefits of continued growth at scale, driving operating leverage and supporting margin expansion, further reinforced by our cost efficiency programme.

Business Post reports that reported currency revenues rose by 28.2 per cent to $3.823 billion in H1’27 and surged by 20.8 per cent in constant currency.

The sustained growth across all the company’s regions and business segments reflects the structural growth opportunity and further evidence of our continued execution against this opportunity.

The mobile services business continued to grow at almost 19 per cent in constant currency as data revenue growth of 28 per cent continues to underpin growth. Mobile money revenue growth in constant currency remained stable at 25.8 per cent.

Continued execution against its strategic priorities, alongside sustained investment, drove strong trends across all the regions, with Francophone Africa’s constant currency revenue growth accelerating to 20.3 per cent in Q2’27, and Nigeria growing by 24.4 per cent and East Africa by 18.6 per cent.

Commenting on the development, the chief executive of Airtel Africa, Mr Sunil Taldar, said, “Over the first half we have delivered another strong operating and financial performance, reflecting the depth of underlying demand across our markets and consistent execution of our strategy, with total customer growth remaining strong and stable at 11.6 per cent.

“The investment case remains as compelling as ever, supported by favourable demographic and economic trends, strong demand for data and financial services, and smartphones on our network increasing to over 100 million, with substantial headroom for further adoption.

“We are increasingly leveraging AI across the business to deepen customer understanding, accelerate innovation, simplify customer journeys and strengthen the detection of fraud and emerging threats.

“Combined with our ability to utilise our network, distribution and customer relationships to develop new businesses, these structural drivers underpin our confidence in the Group’s long-term growth prospects.”

“Our confidence in the growth trajectory of the business and the significant long-term opportunity across our markets underpins our decision to accelerate investment.

“During the period, we increased the pace of network investment to expand capacity and enhance service quality, positioning the business to capture an increasing share of future growth,” he further stated.