Airtel Africa Posts 11.2 pct Revenue Increase in FY20

Bharti Airtel Africa unit full-year revenues ending March 2020 reached $3.4 billion, an increase of 11 percent attributed to Mobile money and data offering.

The growth in mobile money segment was driven by a 28.9 percent increase in customers and a 21.4 percent growth in transaction value per customer, supported by the expansion of the company’s distribution network.

“Across the regions, Nigeria and East Africa continued to deliver strong performance, and performance in Francophone Africa continued to improve with revenue up 4.1 percent in Q4 2020. Revenue growth was broadly based across all key segments: voice up 5.2 percent, data up 39 percent and mobile money up 37.2 percent in constant currency terms,” Airtel Africa said in a statement.

Performance for the year was boosted by a 24.1 percent rise in revenue from Nigeria which accounts for 40 percent of the company’s overall revenue.

Revenue for the East African region rose to KSh128.1 billion up from KSh117.5 billion last year, a 13.6 percent increase.

Data accounted for 25.6 percent of the KSh128.1 billion total revenue for East African region. Mobile money accounted for 17.7 percent while other sources accounted for 10.1 percent of the revenue.

Airtel Africa CEO Raghunath Mandava said: “These are a strong set of results, which delivered against our aspirations set out at the time of the IPO, with performance sequentially improving during the year.

“Revenue increased by 11.2 percent, 13.8 percent in constant currency, and underlying EBITDA by 13.8 percent, 16.3 percent in constant currency, to a reported $1,515m, underpinned by a significant improvement in our free cash flow generation and reduced leverage.

“We have also continued to invest in future growth opportunities as we expanded our distribution, modernised and expanded our network with 65 percent of sites now on 4G, acquired new spectrum in Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi and Chad, and entered into strategic partnerships in our mobile money business.

Airtel Africa’s board has recommended a final dividend of $3 cents per ordinary share.