The strength of the Kenyan shilling over the year has positively impacted Airtel Africa’s growth rates and revenue in the East African market, coupled by a rising customer base in both data and voice services.
- •Airtel’s data customer base in East Africa rose by 12.1% due to 4G network expansion and infrastructural upgrade pushing data revenues in the company’s second quarter to US$335 million.
- •Voice revenues in the market reached US$439 million prompted by increased network coverage and regulators in the region’s individual countries reducing interconnected rates.
- •Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania devalued the currencies affecting the differential in growth rates but this was partially offset by the appreciation of the Kenyan shilling.
“EBITDA increased to US$418 million, up by 2.5% in reporter currency and up by 14.2% in constant currency. EBITDA margins of 47.3% declined by 233 basis points as a result of rising fuel prices in several of our key markets,” Airtel Africa reported.
Airtel, which has been faulted for complacency in its East African market, enabled 986 5G sites in four markers including Kenya to improve its data services. In the half year, data usage per customer in the region grew to 5.9 GB per month.
Revenue from Airtel mobile money services grew by 11.9% driven by a 31.4% growth in East Africa and 20.2% growth in Francophone Africa. Airtel money branches and kiosks were substantially expanded in all markets, raising the customer base by 13.4%.
In Kenya, Airtel Money’s market share rose to 6.6% from 5.1% according to the Communications Authority of Kenya. The company has also sought to capture more market share in the data customer base after launching the ‘Data Imedata’ campaign offering customers 50% more data for KSh 50 to KSh 100.
“The scale of the opportunity across our markets remains substantial. A young and fast-growing population, combined with low levels of SIM and banking penetration on one hand, and increasing smartphone and digital payment adoption across our existing base on the other, provides a unique opportunity to leverage our extensive infrastructure for sustained growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Sunil Taldar, CEO Airtel Africa said.
The group revenue fell by 2.6% to US$1.21 billion between July and September due to challenging hotspots in Nigeria and Francophone Africa. Profits depreciated to US$79 million in the quarter under review due to the forex losses in its Nigerian market surmounting to US$151 million.
“We have already seen strong progress with an acceleration in constant currency revenue growth over the last quarter as demand for our services remain strong, reflected in the 48% growth in data volumes over the first half of the year, despite the challenging backdrop in some of our markets,” Sunil added.
Nigeria, Airtel Africa‘s largest market, saw its revenues decline by 44.3% because of the Naira’s devaluation. Inflation in major Francophone nations saw Airtel’s revenue in those markets slightly grow by 5.2%.