Airtel Africa Plc reported a quarterly pre-tax profit that more than doubled with the telecoms company signing up more customers for its mobile and data services
The Africa unit, which listed on the London Stock Exchange, said its revenue growth of 10.2 per cent in constant currency was driven by double-digit growth in Nigeria and East Africa, partially offset by a decline in revenue in rest of Africa.
Total revenue rose 6.9 per cent to US$795.9mn in the three months, boosted by a 9.3 per cent rise in the company’s customer base to 99.7mn despite a hit from currency translation.
Airtel Africa, a unit of India’s Bharti Airtel Ltd, stated that pretax profit for the first quarter ended June 30 rose to US$167.4mn from US$80.2mn a year earlier.
The company’s constant currency revenue in voice increased by 3.2 per cent, data revenue increased by 35.9 per cent, and mobile money revenue grew by 41.8 per cent.
CEO Raghunath Mandava commented, “In the quarter, we delivered a 10 per cent increase in revenue in constant currency terms, with even higher underlying EBITDA growth largely as a result of operating leverage and a tight focus on costs which led to underlying EBITDA margin expansion of 101bps.”
“Voice revenue, our largest business product, was up three largely driven by nine growth in our customer base, now reaching nearly 100mn customers across our footprint. Data revenue, our largest contributor to growth, was up 36 per cent as an increasing number of customers relied on our high-quality and high-speed LTE network, resulting in a 79 per cent growth in data usage.”
“Mobile Money revenue, our fastest growing business, increased by 42 per cent as we expanded our distribution reach. We continued to invest in our 4G network, adding nearly 1,500 sites; now more than half of our sites are 4G.”
“We also continue to prepare for the launch of our Mobile Money business in Nigeria, securing approval of the brand name, an important step as we await approval for our payment service bank license.”
