Airtel Africa plc, one of the leading telecommunications service providers in Africa, has reported strong financial results for the year ended 31 March 2023.

The company’s customer base grew by 9.0% to 140.0 million as mobile data and mobile money services continued to rise in key markets.

Airtel Africa’s constant currency ARPU grew by 7.4%, largely due to the increase in usage of voice, data, and mobile money. Similarly, mobile money transaction value rose by 41.3% with the final quarter (Q4) 2023 annualized transaction value exceeding $102bn in constant currency.

According to Airtel Africa plc, the growth in customer base was fueled by the increasing demand for mobile data and mobile money services.

Mobile service revenue grew by 16.2% in constant currency as voice revenue increased by 11.8% and data revenue expanded by 23.8% while mobile money revenue grew by 29.6% in constant currency.

Airtel Africa plc has also been investing in its capital allocation, with Capex increasing by 14.0% to $748m, in line with its guidance, as it continues to invest for future growth. Additionally, the company acquired spectrum in Nigeria, the DRC, Tanzania, Zambia, and Kenya during the year.

The company’s sustainability strategy has also been making progress. Airtel Africa plc published its Scope 1, 2, and 3 baseline GHG footprint in October 2022 and announced its detailed plans to achieve over 60% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity by 2032 in May 2023.

The Board has recommended a final dividend of 3.27 cents per share, making the total dividend for FY’23 5.45 cents per share, an increase of 9% in line with its progressive dividend policy.

Speaking on the result, Olusegun Ogunsanya, chief executive officer, said “Over the last year, the operating environment has been challenging in many ways, yet our strategic focus on providing reliable, affordable and accessible services across our markets has enabled us to sustain our top-line growth momentum.

The resilience of our underlying EBITDA margins has shown the effectiveness of our operating model, despite significant inflationary and foreign exchange pressures. Strong customer and ARPU growth over the year demonstrates that demand for our services remains very strong and gives us the confidence to continue investing to support ourfuture growth potential.

Over the year, we invested $500m on additional spectrum, including 5G, across many of our OpCos which, combined with our capex, will underpin our growth ambitions. Despite this investment, and driven by a disciplined capital allocation policy, our balance sheet remains strong and has been further de-risked over the last year by the prepayment of $450m HoldCo debt in July last year.

Currencies across our footprint have been under pressure, and the impact from the revaluation of our foreign currency denominated liabilities provided some headwinds in the last financial year. While currency devaluation is not in our control, we have plans to continue to mitigate its impact by growing our revenues at a faster pace than devaluation, with double-digit revenue growth in reported currency delivered this year and as we continue to reduce our foreign currency exposure across our balance sheet.

Our six-pillar strategy continuesto provide the basis for stakeholder value creation by facilitating continued expansion of our services to enhance both digital and financial inclusion across Africa. This strategy will continue and will be underpinned by our sustainability strategy as articulated in our Sustainability Report published in October 2022.

I am pleased with this year’s performance and wish to thank all our customers, business partners, governments and regulators for their support and our employees for their consistent contribution to the business’ success. The macroeconomic outlook remains volatile, but we are well positioned to deliver against the growth opportunities these markets offer, with a continued focus on margin resilience.”