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Airtel Grows Net Profit By 82% To $755m

Airtel Africa Plc delivered well-rounded performance in the immediate past business year with 20.6 per cent growth in revenue and 82 per cent growth in net profit.

The audited report and accounts of Airtel Africa for the year ended March 31, 2022 released yesterday showed that the year was of strong growth, margin expansion and cash generation.

The overall performance was particularly boosted by the Nigerian market, which recorded the highest top-line growth of 27.7 per cent.

Group revenue grew by 20.6 per cent to $4.714 billion. The top-line was driven by growths across the regions: Nigeria up 27.7 per cent, East Africa up 22.7 per cent and Francophone Africa up 17.2 per cent. The group also reported growths across all key services, with revenue in voice up by 15.4 per cent, data up by 34.6 per cent and mobile money up by 34.9 per cent.

Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 29 per cent to $2.31 billion, with underlying EBITDA margin of 49 per cent, an increase of 294 basis points. Operating profit grew by 37.2 per cent to $1.535 billion while profit after tax rose by 82 per cent to $755 million. Consequently, basic earnings per share rose to 16.8 cents, an increase of 86.5 per cent.

The report also showed operating free cash flow of $1.655 billion, up by 40.5 per cent,with net cash generated from operating activities up by 20.7 per cent to $2.011 billion. Over the last 12 months, the group has repaid nearly $1.4 billion of debt as a result of strong cash upstreaming across its operating companies and proceeds from minority investments in mobile money and tower sales.

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Thus leverage ratio improved to 1.3 times in 2022 from 2.0 times in 2021, with $1 billion of debt now held at the holding company as against $2.4 billion in 2021.

On Operations, the report indicated customer base of 128.4 million, a modest increase of 8.7 per cent, with increased penetration across mobile data, which customer base rose by 15.2 per cent and mobile money services, where customer base increased by 20.7 per cent.

Airtel Africa noted that NIN-SIM regulations in Nigeria impacted customer growth in first half, but then returned to strong growth, adding four million customers in Nigeria during second half of the year.

The board of directors of the group has recommended a final dividend of 3.0 cents per share, making total  full year dividends of 5.0 cents per share compared with 4.0 cents paid for the 2021

Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Africa Plc, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya, described the results as strong set of results, which demonstrated the group’s solid execution as it continued to enrich the lives of a growing number of people through leveraging the sizeable opportunity to promote digital and financial inclusion across our markets.

“We have delivered strong double-digit growth in revenues across all our regions and all our key services, with improving margins driven by strong cost control, and expanding cash generation which is enabling us to continue to invest in our network and services and expand our distribution, as well as strengthening our balance sheet and increasing our returns to shareholders. We are connecting more customers in new and existing coverage areas and driving usage levels and ARPUs to new highs.

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“We have successfully executed on a number of strategic initiatives in the year, with tower sales completed in fourcountries, $550m of minority investments secured for our mobile money business and a successful buyout of minorities in our Nigerian operation. Our receipt last month of a full PSB licence in Nigeria will help us to accelerate financial inclusion in the territory and drive our mobile money business even faster.

“While the fundamentals of our six-pillar growth strategy remain unchanged, we are looking to accelerate our performance through a greater focus on digitalisation and we have underpinned our strategic pillars with our sustainability ambition.

“I am particularly proud of the progress we have made in articulating our sustainability strategy this year as well as the partnership we announced with UNICEF to help drive and support educational programmes in our territories. I very much look forward to us publishing both our pathway to net zero and our first full sustainability report later in the year.

“Turning to the outlook, long-term opportunities for us remain attractive. While mindful of currency devaluation and repatriation risks, we continue to work actively to mitigate all our material risks and to deliver value for all our stakeholders. There are increasing challenges from global inflationary pressures, but we continue to target revenue growth ahead of the market and moderate margin expansion,” Ogunsanya said.

Source: Nation

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