Airtel Africa reports 22.5% growth in revenue for 9-months 2021
Airtel Africa Plc, telecom giant, has released its 2021 9-month Unaudited Financial Statement revealing a 22.5% growth in revenue from $2.85 billion in 2020 to $3.49 billion in the current period.
Net profit for the nine-month period appreciated significantly by 97.3% 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% from $800 million to $1.15 billion in the current period.
However, in Q4 2021, the company reported a 17.90% growth in revenue of $1.22 billion from $1.03 billion in the corresponding period of 2020, while profit after tax in the same quarter, appreciated by 54.4% to stand at $180 million.
Key highlights of the report
- The group reported double-digit growth across all key services; as Voice revenue, data revenue and mobile revenue grew by 16.1%, 37.2%, and 22.0%, respectively.
- The 9-month financial statement revealed that the company’s revenue from Nigeria made up roughly 39% to the total revenue, thereby contributing the highest, compared to East Africa and Francophone Africa.
- In Nigeria, revenue grew by 21.3% 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%.
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- 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.
- Airtel Africa recorded taxation for the period at approximately $350 million appreciating by over 58%, from the prior-year period.
- The group’s customer base expanded to 125.8 million, growing by 5.8%, with increased penetration across mobile data and mobile money services.
- Airtel Africa Plc last traded at N1271.00 per share and its market capitalization stands at N4.78 trillion as at Thursday, February 3, 2022. Year-to-date performance shows that the share price of the company has appreciated by 33.09%.
What the management is saying
The Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya commented saying, “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
“We will continue to invest in expanding and evolving our platform to further deepen both financial and digital inclusion across Africa…. We are committed to continue to improve the delivery of our services to our customers, with sustainability at the heart of our continued purpose to transform lives across Africa.”
