Airtel shareholders earn N651bn, NGX fuelled by positive sentiment in July
Airtel’s share price posted gains of 10 per cent in July, becoming one of the best-performing stocks of the trading month following positive investors’ sentiment.
Positive sentiment witnessed on shares of the telecom firm during the month of July has resulted in investors of the company gaining about N651 billion at the close of trading on July 29th.
Airtel Africa began the year with a share price of N955.00 and has since gained 99.5 per cent on that price valuation, ranking ninth on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) in terms of year-to-date performance.
The market sentiment for the segment which comprises two telecom firms – MTN Nigeria Plc and Airtel Africa Plc has remained resilient in the face of the pandemic.
Airtel closed its last trading day (Monday, July 29, 2022) at N1,905.40 per share and N7.160 trillion in market capitalisation on the NGX as against N1,732 per share and N6.509 trillion in market capitalisation at the beginning of trading in July 2022, hence it has made a gain of N651 billion or 10 per cent month to date.
Telecom companies are currently taking advantage of remote working which most companies have adopted following the COVID-19 pandemic to rake in gains from data subscriptions and voice calls.
Many workers are leveraging the Internet for online education, teleworking, gaming and entertainment and there has been a rise in Internet traffic recorded by the Internet exchange point.
Internet traffic had increased as many companies introduced a work-from-home policy a week before the government-imposed lockdown.
Financial analysts at Cardinal Stone Partners Limited have said that unstoppable trends of remote work powered by the telecoms have continued to reshape the world around us.
The analysts in their 2022 Mid-Year Outlook themed: ‘Same Challenges, New Shocks’ said, “We see a compelling case for portfolio exposure to the data-inspired telecoms stocks, that has posted an average earnings growth of 42.8 per cent YoY over the last eight quarters. Over this period, internet and mobile services continue to inspire change in communication patterns among citizens and businesses. It has also led to innovations in payment systems, pioneered by existing and new FinTechs and telecoms operators. In our view, Nigeria’s demographic characteristics (i.e high proportion of youthful population) is likely to continue to drive increase in the adoption rate of data-enabled devices and digital offerings.”
Airtel Africa Plc is a public limited company, incorporated on July 12, 2018, as a private company limited by shares in the United Kingdom and re-registered as a public limited company on June 13, 2019 with its registered office situated in England and Wales.
Airtel is a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services with presence in 14 African countries, primarily in East, Central, and West Africa.
The company is listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NGX) since July 9th, 2019. Airtel Africa is the 96th most traded stock on the Nigerian Stock Exchange over the past three months (Apr 12 – Jul 18, 2022). It has traded a total volume of 7.65 million shares in 2,304 deals—valued at NGN 12.4 billion over the period, with an average of 121,433 traded shares per session. A volume high of 1.39 million was achieved on May 27th, and a low of 31 on April 13th, for the same period.
