Airtel Africa has demonstrated yet another strong performance in its newly released half-year reports for 2024, sustaining its drive to profitability after a difficult 2023. The telecoms firm, which operates in 14 African countries, reported $79 million in profit after tax, compared to a loss of $13 million in H1 2023.
This recovery is despite rising fuel costs and currency devaluations, which continue to impact Airtel’s top line.
The company’s revenue declined 9% ($2.37 billion) due to devaluations in the Nigerian naira, the Malawian kwacha, the Zambian kwacha, and the Tanzanian shilling. The telco will work on improving its customer experience via continued investment in the data experience. Data capacity across the network increased by 20% with the rollout of over 2,800 sites and around 3,500 km of fibre, the financials said.
Key takeaways:
- Airtel Africa reported revenue of $2.37 billion year-on-year, down 9.7%
- It gained $79 million in profits year-on-year, up 726.3%
- Mobile money customers grew 13.4% in H1 2024 to 41.5 million
Its strong bottom line was driven by data and mobile money services revenue, which increased overall Average Revenue per User (ARPU) by 11%. Data customers grew 10.4% to 66 million, while mobile money users in the telco’s East and Francophone Africa segments increased to 41.5 million.
Data revenue grew to $844 million, with voice slightly overtaking revenue contributions to $960 million. Mobile money revenue grew to $466 million, with a continued strong performance in East Africa of 31.4% and Francophone Africa of 20.2%. Similarly, mobile money contributed 28.8% to revenue, surpassing both voice and data in percentage points. Strong optimism in the telco’s Airtel money product set to go public in 2025 could be driving these numbers.
Airtel’s customer base grew to 156.6 million as the company continued to reduce its foreign currency debt exposure, having paid down $809m of foreign currency debt it racked up during its 2019 IPO. This half year, the company claimed to have shifted foreign currency debt to local currency debt, reducing FX pressure that threatened profitability for the better part of 2023.
Despite the positive results, Airtel Africa’s share price is down 5% in pre-market trading. However, investors are likely to be encouraged by the company’s strong financial performance and its continued focus on growth and profitability.
“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,” said new CEO Sunil Taldar, who succeeded Olusegun Ogunsanya in June 2024.
“The growth opportunity across our markets remains compelling and we continue to focus on margin improvement.”
In September 2024, the telco extended tower lease agreements with ATC for approximately 7,100 sites in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Niger for a further 12-year period. The new agreement will focus on renewable energy, driving operating cost efficiencies and cash flow in the medium and near term. The lease agreements will enhance Airtel’s ambition to offer a better network experience to customers.
Its Nigerian subsidiary, Airtel Nigeria complied with a Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) barring all customers without NINs as well as customers with more than four active SIMs which had a negligible impact on revenue.
