Airtel Africa Plc Reports A $3.492 Billion Revenue Growth

Airtel Africa Plc released its nine-month financial report ending December 31, 2021, with a strong top-line and bottom-line performance as the telecommunication company posted a US $3.492 billion revenue return.

The company that just on Monday, January 30, 2022, got listed on the FTSE 100, one of the leading stock indexes in the world, used this report to demonstrate financial probity, ingenuity, resourcefulness, and good corporate governance to investors in Nigeria and other parts of the world. https://allnews.ng/news/airtel-africa-set-to-join-ftse-100.

The report below showed strong growth across all key metrics, with Nigeria Payment Service Bank (PSB) approval in principle to unlock further mobile money opportunities.

Key details of the report:

• Revenue grew by 21.7% from $2.87 billion on Dec. 31, 2020 to $3.492 billion on Dec. 31, 2021.

• Constant currency underlying revenue growth was recorded across all regions: Nigeria up 29.0%, East Africa up 24.4%, and Francophone Africa up 19.0%; and across all key services, with revenue in Voice up 16.1%, and in Data and Mobile Money both up 37.2%.

• Underlying EBITDA was $1,703m, growing by 31.3% in reported currency with an EBITDA margin of 48.8%, an increase of 326 basis points led by both revenue growth and improved operational efficiencies.

• Constant currency underlying revenue grew by 24.8%.

• That operating profit/net profit grew by exactly 43.1% from $800 million on December 31, 2020, to $1.146 billion on December 31, 2021.

• That profit after tax almost doubled by exactly 97.3%, from $261 million on December 31, 2020, to $514 million on December 31, 2021, as the higher profit before tax more than offset associated tax charges.

• However, basic earnings per share (EPS) were 11.7 cents compared to 5.5 cents on December 31, 2020, an increase of 113.8%, largely as a result of higher profit.

• Operating free cash flow grew by 42.2% to $1,271m and net cash generated from operating activities was up 23.1% to $1,499m.

• The leverage ratio improved to 1.4x from 2.1x in the previous period.

• The customer base expanded to 125.8 million, growing by 5.8%, with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 11.1%) and mobile money services (customer base up 19.6%). Customer base growth was affected by the NIN/SIM regulations in Nigeria but returned to growth in this region in the third quarter; excluding Nigeria, the customer base grew by 12.0%.

 

While speaking on the result, the CEO of Airtel Africa, Segun Ogunsanya, agreed that the strong showing witnessed in the expansion of the company’s network and distribution capacity helped improve growth showings. According to him,

"A strong third quarter has contributed to a pleasing nine-month financial performance across all key metrics. 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. "

He also attributed the successes of the company to an improvement in the company’s customer base, with Nigeria returning to growth once the embargo on new sim card sales was lifted.

"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."

Not only were the financial results pleasing to him, he also used the opportunity to inform the investing public that the company's getting approval in principle for both a payment service bank (PSB) license and a super-agent license was another thing of joy for the company.

"This will enable us to expand our digital financial products and reach the millions of Nigerians that do not have access to traditional financial services." We continued to strengthen our balance sheet, with our leverage ratio now at 1.4 times underlying EBITDA, thanks both to the continued increases in operating cash flow delivery and to the $550m 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. He promised.

"Our sustained investments in both network and distribution expansion will help to ensure that both the communities and economies across our footprint will continue to benefit from increased and affordable connectivity and financial inclusion."

"We are committed to continuing to improve the delivery of our services to our customers, with sustainability at the heart of our continued purpose to transform lives across Africa", he concluded.