Bharti Airtel Africa unit recorded KSh33 billion ($331 million) declined profit after tax in the third quarter (Q3) mainly on account of higher tax payment with a 21.3 percent rise in operational costs.
The firm, which recently listed at the London Stock Exchange saw its revenues from its 14 operations in Africa jump 9.9 percent to Ksh 250 billion ($2.52 billion) due to good performance in Nigeria and East Africa regions.
“Revenue in East Africa grew by 7.5% in the nine-month period ended 31 December 2019. Constant currency growth of 12.0% was partially offset by currency devaluation in Zambia and Malawi. Revenue growth of 12.0% in constant currency was driven by growth across all services.
All countries delivered a solid performance and contributed to revenue growth, with the exception of Rwanda,” reads part of the Airtel Africa plc Nine-month period ended 31 December 2019 financial results.
From the report, the East African region was a key driver of data and mobile money revenues following the roll-out of 4G services across the region as well as increased outlets offering Airtel Money services.
Data revenue increased by 17.4%, and by 24.4% in Q3’20driven by the increase in the data customer base, up 19.4% and an increase in data usage per customer, up 55.1%.
The growth was supported by the rollout of the 4G network. Smartphone penetration was up 2.6%. We continued to offer popular “more for more” data bundles which supported the overall growth of data usage.
“In the nine-month period, data revenue accounted for 25.2% of the total revenue in East Africa. The improvement in Q3’20 data revenue growth was mainly driven by Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia as a result of increased 4G data usage, up by almost 4x, and data Average revenue per user (ARPU) increase.”
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Mobile money revenue increased by 44.1 percent, driven by customer base growth of 19.9 percent and transaction value per customer growth of 23.1 percent.
Bharti Africa chief executive officer Raghunath Mandava said, “This is now the eighth consecutive quarter that we have delivered double-digit revenue growth. This set of strong results further demonstrates our ongoing ability to deliver against the opportunities offered by the markets in which we operate.”
