Airtel Africa Increase Customer Base by 11.8% to 111.5 Million

Airtel Africa Plc, one of Africa’s leading telecommunications companies, on Thursday reported a 11.8 percent increase in customer base to 111.5 million for the second quarter of 2020.

Airtel grew revenue by 6.9 percent $851 million, while constant currency revenue growth expanded by 13 percent.

In the financial statement released on the website of the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Friday, the telecom giant said it recorded constant currency revenue growth across key business segments, with voice revenue rising by 2.2 percent and data expanding by 35.7 percent during the quarter.

The company said its mobile money segment grew by 26.3 percent in the second quarter of the year.

Key Highlights of the Quarter

• Underlying EBITDA increased by 7.9% to $375m, with constant currency growth of 14.6%
• Reported underlying EBITDA margin was 44.1%, up by 40 bps(61 bpsin constant currency)
• Operating profit increased by 12.9% to $210m, an increase of 21.5% in constant currency
• Free cash flow was $96m compared to $62m in the same period last year
• Earnings per share (EPS) before exceptional items was $1.0 cents and basic EPS was $1.1 cents
• Net debt to underlying EBITDA was 2.2x, compared to 3.0x in June 2019

Commenting on the performance, Raghunath Mandava, Chief Executive Officer, said: “During last quarter our business was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, as restrictions on movements of people and ways of socialising were introduced to contain the spread of infection. In these unprecedented times, we have worked with governments, regulators, partners, and suppliers to keep customers and businesses connected as well as supporting the economies and communities. We focussed on expanding and maintaining our network to ensure it could cope with increasing demand, we kept our distribution up and running by increasing the penetration of digital recharges and stock levels, and we expanded our home broadband solutions to ensure customers could work and access entertainment remotely.

Covid-19 impacted customer usage pattern, particularly during the month of April, however, as some of these restrictions started to be lifted, customer usage trends in May and June returned to being broadly consistent with pre Covid-19 trends. The Group’s performance generally reflected these trends, with revenue growth accelerating in May, and we ended the quarter with 13% revenue growth and 61 bps of EBITDA margin expansion in constant currency. The business showed its resilience even during these unprecedent circumstances with all key business segments – voice, data and mobile money, and all regions – Nigeria, East Africa and Francophone Africa contributing to growth.

During the quarter we also increased our support of the communities where we operate by providing financial support towards essential workers, free data for educational purposes and we worked together with governments to temporarily waive fees on certain mobile money transactions. We also created an exciting partnership with UNICEF to provide children with access to remote learning and enable access to cash assistance for their families via mobile cash transfers.

The outlook remains uncertain, particularly regarding a so called potential second wave of infections and the actions governments will decide to take in that event. However, these results are further evidence of the growth opportunities our markets offer and the effectiveness of our strategy to focus on winning customers, investing in our network and expanding our voice, data and mobile money businesses.”