Airtel Africa Grows Net Profit To $514m In 9months

Airtel Africa Plc, grew its profit after tax by 97.3 per cent in its nine months financial statement for the year ended December 31, 2021The telecom company results released on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited revealed that profit after tax grew by 97.3 per cent from $261 million to $514 million.

Revenue rose by 22.5 per cent from $2.85 billion in 2020 to $3.49 billion in the current period, while net profit for the nine-month period appreciated significantly by 97.3 per cent from $261 million in 2020 to $514 million.

The increase in net profit is attributable to a higher operating profit compared to the prior period. Operating profit grew by 43 per cent from $800 million to $1.15 billion in the current period.

The group reported double-digit growth across all key services; as voice revenue, data revenue and mobile revenue grew by 16.1 per cent, 37.2 per cent and 22.0 per cent, respectively.

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In Nigeria, revenue grew by 21.3 per cent from $1.13 billion in the corresponding period of 2020 to $1.37 billion, as data revenue growth continued to be a key driver of growth in Nigeria, growing by 44.5 per cent.

Total customer base in the country declined by 2 million, largely due to the implementation of new ‘Know-Your-Customer’ (KYC) requirements in Nigeria, which initially included a temporary halt to new customer activations.

The group’s customer base expanded to 125.8 million, growing by 5.8 per cent, with increased penetration across mobile data and mobile money services.

The CEO of Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya stated that, “a strong third quarter has contributed to a pleasing nine-month financial performance across all key metrics.”

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Ogunsanya noted that “operationally we have continued to execute on our network and distribution expansion plans, driving continued strong growth in ARPUs across voice, data and mobile money.

“We have also seen further improvement in our customer growth trends for the Group with Nigeria returning to strong customer growth after a period affected by the implementation of new ‘know your customer’ requirements, posting 1.9 million net additions in the third quarter, taking total Group customer additions to 3.1 million.”

He added that, “we continued to strengthen our balance sheet, with our leverage ratio now 1.4 times underlying EBITDA, thanks both to continued increases in operating cash flow delivery and to over $550 million of cash that has now been received from minority investments into our mobile money business.

“We will continue to invest in expanding and evolving our platform to further deepen both financial and digital inclusion across Africa. I continue to see huge growth potential across voice, data and mobile money and our strategy is delivering against this opportunity

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