Airtel Africa Plc records double digit growth in Q1 2022
…As Airtel Nigeria contributes 18.3% to profit growth
By Ibiyemi Mathew
Airtel Africa Plc has recorded double-digit revenue growth, margin and earnings progression in the first half of 2022.
This was revealed by the Group CEO, Mr Segun Ogunsanya while delivering a trade update on the organisation.
According to Ogunsanya, “this is another strong set of results for Airtel Africa, demonstrating our solid execution as we continue to enrich the lives of a growing number of people through leveraging the sizeable opportunity to promote digital and financial inclusion across our markets.
“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.”
Ogunsanya further acknowledged the contributions of the Nigerian market to the growth of Airtel Africa Plc.
The results revealed that mobile Services revenue in Nigeria grew by 18.3%, in East Africa by 11.1% and in Francophone Africa by 10.6% (and across the Group by 14.2%, with voice revenue up by 11.3% and data revenue up by 19.8%).
Mobile Money revenue grew by 26.5%, driven by growth of 26.9% in East Africa and 25.4% in Francophone Africa.
According to Ogunsanya, “after receiving the Payment Service Bank licence in Nigeria just a few months ago, it is a testament to our prior preparation that we have already managed to launch our mobile money operations in a few select locations without any operational issues.
“We are excited by the commercial developments and opportunities here. We also continued to invest for growth and have made a couple of major additional spectrum acquisitions recently in the DRC and Kenya in anticipation of continued strong data demand growth in these markets.
“We continue to target growth ahead of the market this year and, despite inflationary pressures, our continued focus on cost efficiencies should also support margin resilience. Longer term, the opportunities for sustainable profitable growth stemming from our underpenetrated markets for each of mobile voice, data and mobile money services remain hugely attractive, and we are confident of continuing to deliver on our growth strategy,” he noted.
