Airtel Africa has released its consolidated results for half year (H1) ended September 30, 2024. As per the company, its revenue stood at $ 2,370 million as compared to $ 2,623 for H1 of financial year 2024-24 (FY24), reporting 19.9 per cent change in constant currency, reflecting the impact of currency devaluation, particularly in Nigeria. Meanwhile, the growth accelerated to 20.8 per cent in second quarter (Q2) of FY25 driven by an acceleration of growth in Nigeria to 38.2 per cent and in Francophone Africa to 9.0 per cent. Across the group, mobile services revenue grew by 18.4 per cent and Mobile Money revenue grew by 28.8 per cent in constant currency.
Further, the company’s earnings before tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation stood (EBITDA) at $ 1,087 million in H1 FY25 as compared to $ 1,302 million in H1 FY24, marking a change of 13.5 per cent in constant currency. Furthermore, a substantial increase in fuel prices across the company’markets and the lower contribution of Nigeria to the Group after the naira devaluation contributed to a decline in EBITDA margins to 45.8 per cent from 49.6 per cent in H1 FY24. In Q2 FY25, EBITDA margin at 46.4 per cent improved sequentially from 45.3 per cent in Q1 FY25 reflecting the initial successes in the company’s cost efficiency programme launched earlier in the year.
Furthermore, profit after tax amounted to $ 79 million as compared to loss after tax of $ 13 million in the corresponding quarter last year. This was due to an impact of $ 151 million of exceptional derivative and foreign exchange losses (net of tax), arising from the further depreciation in Nigerian naira during the period.
The company’s earnings per share (EPS) before exceptional items declined from 7.0 cents in the prior period to 4.9 cents, primarily reflecting the translation impact of currency devaluation. Basic EPS of 0.8 cents compares to negative 1.5 cents in the prior period, predominantly reflecting the $ 471 million exceptional derivative and foreign exchange losses in the prior period, compared to $ 231 million in the current period.
At the same time, the company reported a 6.1 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth in its total customer base to 156.6 million. Meanwhile, the overall average revenue per user (ARPU) witnessed an 11.1 per cent change in constant currency change to $2.6 this quarter, driven by a 13.5 per cent growth in Data ARPU and 10.9 per cent growth in Mobile Money ARPU.
Commenting on the report, Sunil Taldar, chief executive officer, Airtel Africa, said, “The sustained operating momentum over the period is testament to our teams’ ability to execute our strategy brilliantly. During the period, we refined our strategy to significantly increase our focus on delivering best in class experience to our customers. To meet our customer’s expectations, we will strengthen our ‘go-to-market’ through enhanced distribution, simplified customer journeys and best in class network experience. This will further unlock the significant opportunity Africa offers and will provide the foundation of strong growth across our markets and our business segments, especially as we build and scale up business-to-business (B2B) and home broadband segments. The scale of 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. We have already seen strong progress, with an acceleration in constant currency revenue growth over the last quarter as demand for our services remains strong, reflected in 48 per cent growth in data volumes over the H1 FY25, despite the challenging backdrop in some of our markets. Furthermore, we have seen our cost optimisation programme already show initial green shoots, which combined with operational leverage, has contributed to an expansion of our EBITDA margins in Q2 FY25 compared to the previous quarter. Foreign currency debt has fallen to just 11 per cent of market debt at the end of September which reflects the work we have undertaken to de-risk the balance sheet. We remain absolutely focussed on executing against our strategy to efficiently and effectively deliver essential services to improve the lives, communities and economies we serve. The growth opportunity across our markets remains compelling and we continue to focus on margin improvement.”
