Dipo Olowookere
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Despite the various headwinds it faced in Nigeria, its main market, Airtel Africa Plc managed to grow its revenue by double-digits in the first quarter of its 2023 financial year, which ended on June 30, 2022.
The earnings went up by 13.0 per cent in reported currency to $1.3 billion as total revenues for mobile services and mobile money services combined grew in Nigeria by 18.3 per cent, in East Africa by 14.1 per cent and in Francophone Africa by 11.7 per cent.
Further, voice revenue improved by 11.3 per cent, while data revenue inflated by 19.8 per cent.
These were influenced by the 8.9 per cent increase in the company’s total customer base to 131.6 million, with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 9.7 per cent) and mobile money services (customer base up 19.7 per cent).
In the period under review, EBITDA grew by 14.9 per cent to $614 million in reported currency, while the EBITDA margin was up by 48.8 per cent.
It was disclosed that operating profit grew by 20.6 per cent to $425 million in reported currency as the profit after tax jumped by 25.3 per cent to $178 million, with the earnings per share (EPS) increasing by 31.0 per cent to 4.4 cents.
“I am pleased to report that the Group has continued to post double-digit revenue growth, margin improvement and strong earnings growth.
“I am also particularly pleased with our ongoing strengthening of the balance sheet which continued after the period ended, with early repayment of $450 million of debt at Group level,” the group CEO of Airtel Africa, Mr Segun Ogunsanya said.
“As we flagged in our full year announcement, this quarter we have faced headwinds from outbound voice call barring for customers who had not yet registered their National Identification Numbers in Nigeria and the loss of site sharing revenue in those OpCos where we recently sold towers.
“Inflation is also having an impact on our cost base, particularly on energy costs, but our continued efficiency drives have ensured that we have still been able to increase our margins, albeit at a slightly slower rate.
After receiving the Payment Service Bank licence in Nigeria just a few months ago, it is a testament to our prior preparation that we have already managed to launch our mobile money operations in a few select locations without any operational issues.
“We are excited by the commercial developments and opportunities here. We also continued to invest for growth and have made a couple of major additional spectrum acquisitions recently in the DRC and Kenya in anticipation of continued strong data demand growth in these markets,” he added.
“We continue to target growth ahead of the market this year and, despite inflationary pressures, our continued focus on cost efficiencies should also support margin resilience. Longer term, the opportunities for sustainable profitable growth stemming from our underpenetrated markets for each of mobile voice, data and mobile money services remain hugely attractive, and we are confident of continuing to deliver on our growth strategy,” Mr Ogunsanya stated.
