Airtel Africa Reports Strong Half-Year Results for 2024: Resilience and Growth in Focus

Airtel Africa has announced its financial results for the half year ending 30th September 2024, showcasing robust performance across key markets. With increased customer growth, strong revenue generation, and a focus on digital transformation, the company continues to solidify its position as a leading telecommunications provider in Africa. The results highlight Airtel Africa’s resilience and commitment to driving connectivity and innovation in the region.

Operating highlights 

• Total customer base grew by 6.1% to 156.6 million. Data customer penetration continues to rise, driving a 10.4%  increase in data customers to 66.0 million. Data usage per customer increased by 30.9% to 6.6 GBs, with smartphone  penetration increasing 5.3% to reach 42.9%.  
• Mobile money subscribers of 41.5 million, increased by 13.4% reflecting our continued investment into distribution to  support increased financial inclusion across our markets. Transaction value increased by 30.1% in constant currency2 with annualised transaction value of $128bn. 
• Data ARPU growth of 13.5% and mobile money ARPU growth of 10.9% in constant currency continued to support  overall ARPU’s which rose 11.1% YoY in constant currency.  
• Customer experience remains core to our strategy with sustained network investment during the period. Data  capacity across our network hasincreased by 20% with the rollout of over 2,800 sites and around 3,500 kms of fibre. 

Financial performance 

• Revenue in constant currency grew by 19.9% in H1’25 with growth accelerating to 20.8% in Q2’25 driven by an  acceleration of growth in Nigeria to 38.2% and in Francophone Africa to 9.0%. Across the Group mobile services  revenue grew by 18.4% and Mobile Money revenue grew by 28.8% in constant currency. Reported currency revenues  declined by 9.7% to $2,370m reflecting the impact of currency devaluation, particularly in Nigeria. 
• A substantial increase in fuel prices across our markets and the lower contribution of Nigeria to the Group after the  naira devaluation contributed to a decline in EBITDA margins to 45.8% from 49.6% in H1’24. In Q2’25, EBITDA margin  at 46.4% improved sequentially from 45.3% in Q1’25 reflecting the initial successes in our cost efficiency programme  launched earlier in the year. Constant currency EBITDA increased 13.5% whilst reported currency EBITDA declined by 16.5% to $1,087m for H1’25. 
• Profit after tax of $79m was impacted by $151m of exceptional derivative and foreign exchange losses (net of tax),  arising from the further depreciation in the Nigerian naira during the period. 
• 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 $471m exceptional derivative and foreign exchange losses in the prior period, compared to $231m in the current period. 

Capital allocation 

• Capex at $316m was 1.3% higher compared to prior period. Capex guidance for the full year remains between $725m and $750m as we continue to invest for future growth. 
• Over the year we have significantly reduced our foreign currency debt exposure, having paid down $809m of foreign  currency debt. 89% of our OpCo debt (excl. lease liabilities) is now in local currency, up from 71% a year ago.  • To secure beneficial contract structures and further enhance our partnership with ATC, we have extended our tower  lease agreements for approximately 7,100 sites in four markets for a further 12-year period. The new agreements  have a focus on renewable energy investment which will drive operating cost efficiencies over the medium-term and will have a neutral to positive impact on near-term free cash flow. The renewals has resulted in a $1.2bn increase in  lease liabilities, which has been the primary driver of the increase in leverage to 2.3x from 1.6x in the previous quarter.  No further material change in leverage should be expected from further renewalsin the near-to-medium term. • The Board has declared an interim dividend of 2.6 cents per share, an increase of 9%, in-line with our progressive  dividend policy. The $100m share buyback continues, with 61m shares purchased for a consideration of $88m as at  the end of September 2024.

Sunil Taldar, Chief executive officer, on the trading update: 

“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 the B2B and home broadband segments. 

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.  

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 the 48% growth in data volumes over the first half of the year, 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 Q2’25 compared to the previous quarter.  Foreign currency debt has fallen to just 11% 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.”

Source: Airtel Zambia