Airtel Africa has disclosed its financial result – Capex, Opex, revenue, profit, subscriber growth and 5G coverage – during January-March 2024.
Airtel Africa’s customer base grew by 9 percent to 152.7 million at the end of March 2024. Airtel Africa achieved a 17.8 percent increase in data customers to 64.4 million and a 20.8 percent increase in data usage per customer.
Airtel Africa achieved 20.7 percent increase in mobile money subscribers. Mobile money transaction value rose 38.2 percent in constant currency with annual transaction value of over $112 billion in reported currency. ARPU grew 8.6 percent.
Airtel Africa has made network investment to support an enhanced customer experience and drive increased 4G coverage. 95 percent of sites are now 4G operational, facilitating a 42.3 percent increase in 4G customers over the year.
Airtel Africa’s revenue grew by 20.9 percent with growth accelerating to 23.1 percent in Q4’24.
Mobile services revenue grew by 19.4 percent, driven by voice revenue growth of 11.9 percent and data revenue growth of 29.2 percent.
Mobile Money revenue grew by 32.8 percent in constant currency, with a continued strong performance in East Africa.
Airtel Africa’s Capex dropped to $737 million ($748 million) due to a deferral in data centre investments. Airtel Africa has invested $152 million in license renewal and spectrum acquisitions, including $127 million for the Nigerian 3G licence renewal.
Airtel Africa has made an investment of $252 million ($293 million) in Nigeria, $284 million ($256 million) in East Africa, $157 million ($151 million) in Francophone Africa and $27 million ($33 million) mobile money.
Olusegun Ogunsanya, Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa, said: “The deployment of our ‘Win with’ strategy supported the acceleration in revenue growth over the recent quarters which has reduced the impact of currency headwinds faced across most of our markets.”
Win with strategy
Airtel Africa is following several cost optimization measures in order to improve profit of the telecom operator.
Airtel Africa has launched 5G technology in key markets including Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia following the acquisition of 5G spectrum.
Airtel Africa added around 5,000 km of fibre, with a total of 75,400+ km now deployed. Airtel Africa enhanced international data capacity via submarine cables by 100 percent to 3.1 Tbps with current 45 percent utilization through a combination of adding additional routes and capacity.
Overall, the capacity investment has resulted in a 32.7 percent increase in data capacity – reaching 31,700+ terabytes (TB) per day, with peak hour data utilization at 53 percent allowing for increased network resilience.
Airtel Africa Group continued its investment in strengthening distribution network infrastructure, with a focus on rural distribution networks. Airtel Africa expanded its exclusive franchise stores, adding over 27,800 kiosks and mini shops (taking the total to almost 89,600 kiosks and mini shops) and adding 1,550+Airtel Money branches(AMB), taking the total to 19,500+ AMBs. Airtel Africa also added around 59,600 activating outlets, an increase of 19.6 percent.
Expansion of the 4G network and improved user experience has helped drive increased smartphone penetration, customer ARPU and consumption per data user across the segments. Smartphone penetration was up 4.2 percentage points to 40.5 percent and data customer grew by 17.8 percent, now representing 42.1 percent of total base.
Smartphone data customers grew by 24.7 percent leading to higher consumption & ARPU growth. Data usage per customer per month also grew by 20.8 percent and reached 5.4GB per month from 4.4GB a year ago. This increase was led by increased smartphone penetration and an expansion of home broadband and enterprise customers. Airtel Africa achieved a 29.2 percent growth in data revenue. 4G handset users’ data usage constituted 88.3 percent of total data usage on the network in Q4’24 growing at 61.3 percent, with 4G data usage per data customer of over 8.7GB per month.
The number of kiosks and mini shops increased by 45 percent and Airtel Money branches by over 8.7 percent. Non-exclusive channel of mobile money agents expanded by 53 percent, following implementation of digital on-boarding journey.
Airtel Africa says its distribution expansion and enhanced offerings helped drive 20.7 percent growth in mobile money customer base, now serving 38.0 million customers, which represents 24.9 percent of total customer base.
Baburajan Kizhakedath
