Airtel Africa profit after tax almost doubled to $514Million as higher profit before tax more than offset associated tax charges for the nine months period ended 31st December 2021.
Airtel Africa is a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services, with a presence in 14 countries in Africa, primarily in East Africa and Central and West Africa.
Airtel Africa Plc Revenues across its 14 markets
Reported Revenue grew by 21.7% to $ 3,492 Million with underlying revenue growth recorded in Nigeria up 29.0%, East Africa up 24.4% and Francophone Africa up 19.0%; and across all key services, with revenue in Voice up 16.1%, and in Data and Mobile Money both up 37.2%.
Basic Earnings Per Share, a measure of the firm’s profitability was 11.7 cents, an increase of 113.8%, largely as a result of higher profit.
EPS before exceptional items increased to 11.5 cents, up from 5.0 cents in the previous period.
Operating free cash flow grew by 42.2% to $1,271Million and net cash generated from operating activities was up 23.1% to $1,499Million.
The customer base expanded to 125.8 Million, growing by 5.8%, with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 11.1%) and mobile money services (customer base up 19.6%).
Customer base growth was affected by the NIN/SIM regulations in Nigeria but returned to growth in this region in the third quarter; excluding Nigeria the customer base grew by 12.0%.
“Operationally we have continued to execute on our network and distribution expansion plans, driving continued strong growth in ARPUs across voice, data and mobile money.
We have also seen further improvement in our customer growth trends for the Group with Nigeria returning to strong customer growth after a period affected by the implementation of new ‘know your customer’ requirements, posting 1.9 million net additions in the third quarter, taking total Group customer additions to 3.1 million,” said Segun Ogunsanya, Airtel Africa chief executive officer.
He made these remarks while giving an update of the firm’s Q3 results for the nine-month period ended 31 December 2021.
He said that Airtel Africa received in November in Nigeria an approval in principle for both a payment service bank (mobile money) licence and a super-agent licence.
“We are now working closely with the Central Bank to meet all its conditions to receive the final operating licences and commence operations. This will enable us to expand our digital financial products and reach the millions of Nigerians that do not have access to traditional financial services,” said Ogunsanya.
On 5 October 2021, Airtel Money announced a new partnership with leading African payments company, Flutterwave, to expand Airtel Money’s services to businesses across East Africa.
The partnership enables businesses integrating Flutterwave in Uganda, Tanzania,
Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Rwanda, to receive payments from Airtel Money customers, as well as make bulk payments into Airtel Money wallets thanks to Airtel Money’s proprietary fintech platforms.
The new services will go live subject to regulatory approvals in the respective countries and will reach Airtel Money’s 20 million customers based in East Africa.
On 9 April 2021, the Minister for ICT in Kenya published an amendment to the National Information Communications and Technology (ICT) Policy Guidelines, 2020 (ICT Policy).
The ICT Policy amendment will affect Airtel Africa’s Kenya business. Airtel Networks Kenya Limited, which currently holds an indefinite exemption from the Minister for ICT, dated 20 March 2013, has three years with effect from 9 April 2021 to comply with the requirement to have a 30% local shareholding.
Airtel Money Kenya Limited, which holds a Content Service Provider Licence from the Communications Authority of Kenya, with effect from November 2020, has three years from the date of the licence to comply with the requirement to have a 30% local shareholding.
Under the amended ICT policy, a licensee may apply to the ICT Minister for an extension of time to comply with the requirement, or to obtain an exemption.
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