Airtel Africa Plc has released its Full Year Audited Financial Statement revealing a 21.3 per cent growth in revenue from $3.89 billion in 2021 to $4.71 billion in the current period.
Net profit for the full year period appreciated significantly by 82 per cent from $451 million in 2021 to $755 million.
The increase in net profit is attributable to a higher operating profit compared to the prior period. Operating profit grew by 37 per cent from $1.12 billion to $1.54 billion in the current period.
However, in Q4 2021, the company reported a 19 per cent growth in revenue of $1.22 billion from $1.04 billion in the corresponding period of 2020, while profit after tax in the same quarter, appreciated by 56 per cent to stand at $240 million.
The group reported double-digit growth across all key services, as Voice revenue, data revenue and mobile revenue grew by 13.2 per cent, 31.8 per cent, and 37.9 per cent, respectively.
The FY 2022 financial statement revealed that the company’s revenue from Nigeria made up roughly 40 per cent of the total revenue, thereby contributing the highest, compared to East Africa and Francophone Africa.
In Nigeria, revenue grew by 21 per cent from $1.55 billion in the corresponding period of 2021 to $1.88 billion, as Data revenue growth continued to be a key driver of growth in Nigeria, growing by 33.7 per cent
Net growth of 2.4 million customers was recorded over the full year, despite being affected by the NIN-SIM linkage regulations in the first half of the year, there was recovery in the second half as 4 million customers were added to the existing customers.
Airtel Africa recorded taxation for the period at approximately $469 million appreciating by over 66 per cent, from the prior year period.
The group’s customer base expanded to 128.4 million, growing by 8.7 per cent with increased penetration across mobile data and mobile money services.
Airtel Africa Plc last traded at N1400.00 per share and its market capitalisation stands at N5.26 trillion as at Tuesday, May 11, 2022. Year-to-date performance shows that the share price of the company has appreciated by 46.60 per cent
The Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya, commented on the Full-Year result saying, “We have delivered strong double-digit growth in revenues across all our regions and all our key services, with improving margins driven by strong cost control, and expanding cash generation which is enabling us to continue to invest in our network and services and expand our distribution, as well as strengthening our balance sheet and increasing our returns to shareholders. We are connecting more customers in new and existing coverage areas and driving usage levels and ARPUs to new highs.”
“We have successfully executed on a number of strategic initiatives in the year, with tower sales completed in four countries, $550 million of minority investments secured for our mobile money business and a successful buyout of minorities in our Nigerian operation. Our receipt last month of a full PSB license in Nigeria will help us to accelerate financial inclusion in the territory and drive our mobile money business even faster,” he added.
Finally, the telecom giant’s CEO stated that the company is working to improve its performance by focusing more on digitisation.